


The Misadventures of Prince Kim

by secretagentspydetectiveninja



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Character Development, Friendship, Lots of Angst, Max is gay, Multi, Slow Burn, alix has a pet snake, alix is aroace, almost no one is straight whoops, and sometimes very cracky, background djwifi and julerose, but also lots of fluff, gabriel agreste is the main villain but mostly offscreen, kim is very bi, kimax but very very slow burn, light-hearted at the start but do not be fooled, oh my god it's FINISHED i'm sorry it's so long, some character deaths but also not really, somewhat coming of age story too, this fic is secretly a geography lesson and you will learn things, timey-wimey nonsense, very starcrossed adrienette because I am cruel, we're talking "kim crushes on like 6 other people first" level of slow burn, which knows how to play lacrosse and monopoly and is really smart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-09
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-01 17:12:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 72
Words: 291,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10194704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretagentspydetectiveninja/pseuds/secretagentspydetectiveninja
Summary: Future rulers from all over the world attend the Françoise Dupont Academy for Royalty and Nobility, and unfortunately for Prince Kim of the kingdom of Lê Chiến, he soon realizes that his reckless personality makes being a good prince very difficult for him indeed – especially when the state of the world declines so much that one wrong move could result in a global war. Chaos ensues.





	1. Françoise Dupont Academy for Royalty and Nobility

The Françoise Dupont Academy for Royalty and Nobility was a large boarding school for the upper classes of society, situated on the borders of the vast Bourgeois Empire. Each year it took in new pupils from various kingdoms all around the globe and trained them in the ways of governing an area of land in accordance with their title, shaping them into competent rulers within three short years. The emperor had invested a huge amount of money into the school recently, wanting it to be ready for the year his own daughter would join.

Imperial Princess Chloé had now reached her 15th birthday, meaning that this September she was eligible to enrol, and by now the academy was considered so prestigious that she would be joined by royalty from some of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the world. In fact, this year there were enough royals joining that for the first time the royalty would be in a completely separate class from the nobility, able to learn about ruling over a country without having to take part in lessons meant for those of a lower status.

Most of the students arrived on the first day of September, though a few from very far away had been there for a little longer to have enough time to settle into their dorms before classes began. The royalty dorms were in a separate area from the nobility dorms, and were noticeably nicer and more well-decorated. It was well-known that the Bourgeois Empire tended to put a lot of effort into maintaining the differences between ranks and especially looking down on commoners, despite that becoming outdated in many other kingdoms.

Prince Kim, of the distant kingdom of Lê Chiến, had already been here for a few days and was impatient to meet up with his friends who were arriving today. He already knew a few of the students who would be in his class – there was Prince Max for starters, of the Kanté Kingdom. When they were younger they had been to several upper class summer camps together and were essentially best friends, or as much as they could be considering that they didn’t get to see each other much. Kim was definitely looking forward to being able to actually hang out with him. He also remembered that Princess Marinette of the Dupain-Cheng Twin Kingdoms would probably be in his class – he knew her too, since Cheng was fairly close to Lê Chiến and they had visited each other quite a few times before and their families were fairly close. It would be good to see her again too.

Heading through the lavish maze of corridors towards the entrance so he could meet up with Max when he arrived, Kim spotted someone else he recognized.

“Hi Ivan, what’s up?” he said, grinning and going over to meet him.

“Ugh, not you again,” Grand Duke Ivan muttered. He had only just arrived and was still wearing a huge fur coat and rather fluffy hat despite the temperature here being warm, and a few porters were helping transport his many bags to his new dorm. Kim and Ivan had met once or twice at various events and did once attend the same summer camp, but things weren’t exactly cordial between them. Mostly due to Kim mocking him more than necessary all the time.

“Hey, aren’t you glad to see me? School is gonna be so fun this year!”

“I should just go back to Bruel and carry on being home-tutored…”

“Is Mylène going to be here this year?”

Ivan’s pale face suddenly flushed red. “I don’t know.”

“Are you telling me you still haven’t told her you like her?”

“I’ll… I’ll do it soon,” Ivan mumbled. “I haven’t seen her recently and… I don’t know if her family would approve or…”

“You’re such a wimp,” Kim laughed. He noticed Ivan curling up a fist and quickly stepped back. “Whoa dude, you can’t touch me. You’re just a grand duke, I’m a freaking _prince_. I could like, have you executed.”

“No you couldn’t! And how many times do I have to tell you, a grand duke in Bruel is the same thing as what you call a prince in other kingdoms!”

“Yeah, I don’t really care. Anyway I’ve got to go see my friend Max, because unlike you I actually have friends, so I’m out of here. See you!”

Kim chuckled and ran off quickly, leaving Ivan standing there fuming, his nervous porters too shy to say anything. Oh yes, school would be so much fun this year… Needling someone as irritable as Ivan was always so amusing. Kim was never allowed to be himself back at home, always under the watchful eye of his family and royal court, but at least here he would be free to finally do what he wanted all the time, and no one would be able to stop him. Not without causing some kind of political incident or something. If anyone yelled at him? He could just tell them to stop before his country declared war on them. Yes, it would be perfect. At least, he wasn’t quite sure how the logistics of declaring war worked, but surely if he threatened someone like that then they would leave him alone.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard someone say his name.

“… isn’t it pretty cool to be here, Kim? I mean, I don’t really like this empire much, it seems kinda backwards, but the school seems good…”

Well, the voice certainly wasn’t talking to _him_ , so was there another student with the same name as him or something? He ran forward and turned the corner to see what was going on, and the first thing that caught his eye was what looked like a long, lime green snake only a few metres away from him. It had a spotty hood – did that mean it had poison fangs? Kim was sure that the snakes in his own kingdom that had hoods were cobras, and he was always told to stay away from those…

In any case, the snake was wrapped around a long golden sceptre that someone was holding. Someone ridiculously short. Kim’s first thought was that surely little kids weren’t allowed at this school, were they? But no, it wasn’t a little kid, it was just a very short but rather pretty teenage girl, dressed in some of the shiniest bling he had ever seen, and wearing a striped headdress that couldn’t quite keep in loose strands of bright pink hair. She was talking to her snake – clearly that was who the other Kim was.

Kim gulped and tried not to look at the snake, not that he was scared of it or anything, that would be ridiculous. He was definitely not afraid of snakes. In any case, the new girl had spotted him and was looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to speak. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned an arm against the wall, saying, “So, did you name that snake after me?”

“No, I have no idea who the hell you are,” she replied flatly. Kim was a little taken back by the flippant use of the world “hell” – usually other royals were always so uptight about how they spoke, it just seemed strange to hear. In that case she probably wasn’t a very high rank. Maybe she was a noble, or even some nouveau-riche commoner who bribed her way in.

“I’m Prince Kim of Lê Chiến”, he clarified. “It’s kind of far away, in the southeast, but it’s really big and cool and wealthy and…”

“Oh, okay.”

“So who are you? Where are you from?”

“I’m Pharaoh Alix of the Kubdel Kingdom.”

Kim tried not to laugh. “Yeah right, as if someone as young as you would be an actual pharaoh, that’s a good one…”

“Dude, I’m not kidding. The throne is passed to the youngest child on their 15th birthday where I’m from, so that’s me. And yeah, that means I’m already in charge of a country and outrank you, so tread lightly okay?”

“That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard… okay seriously though, are you like a princess or a duchess or–”

She suddenly stepped forwards and held the sceptre up so that the snake was right in his face. He leapt back so fast he almost tripped over.

“Get that thing away from me!”

“This snake is a queen cobra, by the way,” Alix said, smirking slightly and still waving the sceptre too close to him for comfort. “He is super venomous. Like, one tiny bite and you’re dead.”

“How are you even allowed to have that?!”

“Because, like I said, I’m a pharaoh so I can do whatever the heck I want and no one can stop me.”

A bunch of porters arrived behind her, pushing a trolley with a few suitcases on it. Alix thankfully lowered the sceptre and went to go check on her luggage.

“Don’t worry porters, I can take it from here, it’s just a trolley, thanks though…” Opening the top of one of the bags, she pulled out a few little wooden wheels and attached them to little hooks on her sandals. “Heck yeah, these corridors are going to be so awesome for skating down…”

“Wait, you have rollerskates?” Kim asked. That was so unfair – he had heard of rollerskates, but he had no idea they were real things. Like rocket ships and hoverboards. Just futuristic ideas that had yet to be invented.

“Yeah, I love skating,” Alix said. “If your kingdom doesn’t have skates then you’re really missing out. Anyway, I’m gonna go find my room now, see you later weird prince guy.” She gave the trolley a shove and sent it hurtling down the corridor, then she quickly caught up and leapt onto it, surfing away from him and out of sight.

Kim breathed a sigh of relief – he did not want to be in the presence of that snake any longer, nor its annoying owner. Hopefully she had been lying about the pharaoh thing and wouldn’t be in his class.

Finally making it to the school entrance, Kim immediately spotted Max sitting on one of his suitcases on the side of the room, waiting for a free porter to help him carry them. It was easy to spot him quickly since Max’s bright green robes and unique spectacles (made out of something called “plastic”, apparently, though Kim did not know what that was) stood out, especially since not many other people at this school seemed to have the brown skin tone that a lot of people from the Kanté Kingdom did. Kim rushed over and hugged his small friend so tightly he lifted him slightly off the ground.

“Max! I haven’t seen you in like a whole year!”

“Kim, it’s so good to see you!” Max said once out of Kim’s grasp, adjusting his glasses which Kim had accidentally knocked askew. “Have you been here long?”

“Just a few days. It’s been kinda boring but now that people are here it’s gonna be really fun!”

“I can’t wait for classes to begin tomorrow,” Max said, causing Kim to suddenly remember how much his friend loved studying and education. “We’re going to learn so much. I mean, I know I could have learnt everything I needed back in my own kingdom, but this will be such an enriching experience. We’ll get to learn about other cultures, and get to meet other future world leaders here… Kim, have you met anyone here yet?”

“Except for you, you mean? Yeah, I saw Ivan here earlier, that guy from Bruel, he’s the same as ever…”

“I hope you didn’t antagonize him again.”

“What? Psshh, no! Well, okay, maybe a little. But I won’t do it again,” Kim added quickly. “And I also just met this really weird girl, she actually had a pet snake! Like, a venomous one! That’s so unfair! You’re not allowed to have those at a school, are you? And she tried to kill me with the snake, so that was really mean of her – oh and the snake has the same name as me, by the way, I’m really offended. And the weird girl said she’s a pharaoh of some country or other, I can’t remember, but anyway there’s no way she can be a pharaoh, that’s like the equivalent of a queen, right? But she’s our age and really weird and really short too, it’s ridiculous, and I told her so…”

“Did this girl have pink hair?”

“Yeah, why?”

Max sighed. “Kim, you _idiot_ …”

“Hey, I almost get killed by an evil cobra and that somehow makes me an idiot?”

“No, you idiot, Alix really _is_ the pharaoh of Kubdel.”

“WHAT?” Kim said, so loudly a nearby noble jumped out of her skin. “Are you kidding me? How do you even know?”

“Her kingdom borders mine so I see her a lot, I was even there for her coronation last year. I know she’s weird but she outranks every single one of us here, even Imperial Princess Chloé, so you can’t just act like an idiot around her all the time! Especially not if she still has that venomous cobra, I did wonder if she was going to bring that with her or not…”

“So if she really is a pharaoh then does that mean she’ll be in our class?”

“Yes.”

“Gah, that is so unfair! She’s going to kill me with that snake!” He folded his arms and grumpily tried to think of ways to kill the snake without having to get near it. Max put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s alright, the snake’s never bitten anyone before as far as I know, and she won’t kill you with it – she’s not that bloodthirsty, okay? Anyway, I need to go to my new dorm and there are no porters around. Are you strong enough to help me out instead?”

“Of course I am!” Kim leapt to his feet and quickly picked up a suitcase in each hand, trying not to stagger under the sudden weight. “You’ve got a map, right? Let’s go!”

Max chuckled – nothing like a bit of physical exercise to get Kim back in a good mood. Taking the map out of his pocket, Max checked the route. “It’s not too far away, good. Let’s go.”


	2. Introductions

The next morning the students were given an introductory assembly by the headteacher, Duke Damocles, in a large pristine hall that had portraits of notable previous students covering the walls. The royalty were seated separately from the nobility, who far outnumbered them. The difference in rank was clearly visible – the royalty were all dressed in much more formal and intricate attire, whereas the nobles mostly were wearing more simple outfits.

Each student was handed out a timetable and a calendar that displayed all the events that would be happening at the school that year. The timetable was filled with the usual subjects, such as literature, sports and the sciences, but also had subjects like economics, world kingdom study, politics, court manners and trade/production. The calendar showed that over the next few months there would be a sports day, an autumn ball, an “oracle session”, and a winter party.

“Dude, do you know what an oracle session is?” Kim whispered to Max.

“No idea, sorry. I suppose we’ll find out soon.”

Sure enough, during the overly long and somewhat boring welcome speech, Duke Damocles did explain what the oracle session meant.

“Here at this academy we are honoured to be able to host the annual oracle session, an event conducted by the esteemed oracle Master Fu specifically for the royal class. Master Fu has a unique ability to be able to see into the future, so in November each of you will have a private discussion with him and have the opportunity to ask him one question about the future. It has to be something to do with either you or your kingdom, so do not ask a question about anyone else, and he cannot answer questions with very subjective answers, so do not ask him questions about personal feelings such as 'will I be happy'. Be aware that you may not like the answer you hear, so think twice before you ask something like 'what age will I live to'. As this event takes place every year in November, you will have three chances during your time at this academy to ask a question. It would be wise to start thinking about this sooner rather than later, as the answers you seek may be the key to having a stable rule or advancing your kingdom.”

After the assembly, the students were sent to their first class. The nobles were numerous enough to have several classes per year group, but the royals of the 15-16 age group were all in one class together, since there were only 14 of them in total. Their classroom was incredibly ornate, with table cloths artistically draped over the desks and cushions on the seats. Once everyone was seated, their class teacher Lady Caline introduced herself, then invited the students to make their own introductions to each other and say a little about each of their kingdoms.

“I’ll go first,” Chloé immediately said. She stood up, having to be very careful since her overly wide skirt was keeping her lodged rather firmly between the seat and the desk. She straightened her wig and cleared her throat, then said, “I am Imperial Princess Chloé, heir apparent to the Bourgeois Empire, as you already know since you’re all here. You will address me as 'Your Imperial Highness' at all times, and don’t speak to me without permission. I believe I have met most of you before at various events and such, though I don’t remember exactly since I rarely associate with people outside my rank. My father, Emperor André, attended this very school himself when he was my age. The Bourgeois Empire is the largest in the world and one of the wealthiest too, and I plan to keep it that way.” Looking around, she added more quietly, “I see that Imperial Prince Adrien isn’t here yet. Maybe he was delayed. But he’s my best friend and also heir to an empire rather than just a measly kingdom, so when he arrives don’t speak to him without permission either, alright?” She sat down again, haughty as ever.

After Chloé, the class took turns to introduce themselves to everyone else. Some, like the mysterious Princess Juleka or quiet Prince Nathaniel, didn’t have much to say at all and didn’t say anything about their kingdoms. Some, like the bubbly Princess Rose, gushed at length about how excited they were to be here and how much they were looking forward to making new friends. Kim realized he hadn’t heard of half these kingdoms before – Césaire? Kurtzberg?? Raincomprix??? Where on earth were those places? Probably small or unimportant, otherwise he would know about them, wouldn’t he?

Alix for some reason had decided it was a good idea to bring her pet snake to class, and Kim noticed that he wasn’t the only one who seemed wary of it. “This is my extremely venomous queen cobra,” she said after having introduced herself and her kingdom, showing off the snake that was wrapped around her arm. “His name is Kim, and don’t worry, he won’t bite… unless I ask him to…”

Before even waiting for her to sit down, Kim the human stood up and said, “My name is also Kim, but I am definitely way cooler than that snake!” He felt Max poke him in the side, warning him to stop being a troublemaker. Kim took a deep breath and continued properly. “I’m from the kingdom of Lê Chiến, it’s very far away but it’s a really big country and we’re well-known for our athletic lifestyle… and… yeah…”

It suddenly occurred to him that he didn’t really know all that much about his own kingdom. He had spent most of his life within various palaces and occasionally travelling to other countries for events, and hadn’t exactly seen much of Lê Chiến properly. He’d never got the chance to. What else was he even supposed to say about his kingdom? Bragging was usually easy for him, but he suddenly felt out of his depth. He sat down rather quickly and let Max speak, going on and on about the Kanté Kingdom and how it had a high HDI and GDP at PPP and various other weird acronyms that he didn’t know the meaning of. To be fair, he doubted that anyone else in the class could understand what Max was saying either, judging by the glazed expressions on everyone’s faces.

After the lesson they were taken to the giant dining hall to have a rather sumptuous lunch, followed by a long afternoon break. Kim and Max aimlessly wandered around the main courtyard, chatting to each other. The nobles were allowed to access this area too and many of them were here exploring, staring in awe when they recognized a member of royalty but not wanting to say anything.

“So Mylène is in our class after all,” Kim said. “I wonder if Ivan’s finally going to tell her he likes her. He probably won’t, though, he’s such a wimp.”

“He might just be nervous, Kim,” Max said. “It’s not easy to confess to someone that you like them.”

“Yeah it is!”

Max chuckled. “Are you willing to prove that?”

“You bet I am. Chloé’s in our class, right? I’ve liked her for ages – I met her at that big banquet thing she had when she turned 13. I could totally ask her out.”

“Um… are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Of course it is! Hey, imagine if I end up betrothed to her? I’d get to be a freaking Imperial Prince!”

“An Imperial Prince- _Consort_ , Kim,” Max muttered, absent-mindedly pushing his glasses up his nose from where they were slowly sliding down. “Not quite the same thing. And she’d have to agree, and anyway you can’t just get betrothed to someone that quickly, you’d have to court her first, and then–”

“Yeah whatever, I can totally do that. And I’ll prove to Ivan that he’s being a wimp. You’ll help me, right?”

Max sighed, trying not to let his disappointment show on his face. Out of all people Kim could be interested in, it was Chloé? Really? Well, never mind. It wasn’t like you could help who you fell in love with. Max knew that too well. “Fine, I’ll help you.”

“Awesome! What do I do first?”

“Well, since her family seem to be big on tradition and convention, you should probably get her a courting gift. Something like jewellery would be ideal.”

“Jewellery, hmm... they’d have jewellery at the merchant square, right? I saw that thing on the map. Apparently they sell cool stuff there. We should go buy some jewellery now.”

“What, right now?”

“Yeah, why not!”

Kim had already turned around and started heading towards the merchant square, leaving Max to quickly catch up. He had forgotten how speedy and impulsive Kim was, always on the go, never stopping for an instant. Of course Kim would want to court Chloé on the very first day of school. That was just the way Kim worked. It was completely ridiculous. Probably annoying to most people, too. For Max, though… he just found it endearing.

The merchant square was a vast indoor courtyard filled with various tents selling all kinds of things imaginable. Max wondered how such a thing could be profitable when the only people here able to spend money were the students and staff, as opposed to the population of a town or city, but quickly remembered that everyone here would be wealthy enough to spend plenty of money, keeping the merchants in business.

Kim and Max walked around looking for somewhere to buy jewellery, and they came across Marinette and one of the other students in their class, someone who neither of them had met before: Princess Alya of the Césaire Kingdom.

“Hi Kim!” Marinette said, waving and rushing over to meet him. “I’m so happy to see you here, and in my class and everything!” She turned to Max and quickly curtseyed. “Nice to meet you, Your Highness – Max, was it?”

“Yes, nice to meet you too,” Max said, to both Marinette and Alya.

“And have you met Alya? I made friends with her yesterday, she’s really lovely!”

“So are you,” Alya said, nudging Marinette in the arm. “And yeah, I hadn’t even met anyone here before because my kingdom’s so far away from everywhere else, but it’s really cool to be here.”

“And by the way, you all have to try the food from Césaire! I tried some last night and it’s amazing! Anyway Kim, what are you doing here? Are you exploring too?”

“We’re on a mission,” Kim said, lowering his voice. “I’m buying a courting gift for someone, I can’t tell you who, but I need to find something nice. Preferably jewellery.”

Marinette squealed, jumping up and down on her toes. “Kim, that’s so exciting! I can totally help you out with that! Me and Alya just passed by this stall with some really lovely jewellery! Follow me, I’ll show you!”

Marinette led them to a stall somewhere in the middle of the bustling market, and sure enough there was plenty of jewellery for sale – earrings, necklaces, bracelets, rings…

“How about a brooch?” Max said, picking up a small blue heart-shaped one from the display and handing it to him. “I know that the girl you like does indeed have an affinity for brooches.”

Kim’s eyes lit up looking at it. “It’s perfect, Max! Thanks! There’s no way I can go wrong with this. I mean, asking girls out is kinda like football, right? You need a strategy and then you aim for the goal and you score!”

“Nice metaphor, Kim!”

“I met a what?”

Marinette and Alya peered over to look at the brooch, both grinning widely.

“It’s amazing!” Marinette said. “She’ll totally love it, Kim! You should definitely go for it!”

“Good luck!” Alya said, giving him a double thumbs up.

“Thanks!” Kim said, and quickly pulled out some money and gave it to the merchant, who placed the jewel into a pretty heart-shaped box and then handed it back. “Come on Max, let’s go give it to her now!”

He took Max by the arm and started walking quickly in the direction of the dorms, and Max had to walk considerably more quickly to match Kim’s long strides. He seriously hoped that Chloé would accept Kim’s gift – after all, from what Max knew of her, she didn’t seem to be the nicest person, so if she rejected Kim then it probably would not be done gently. But since she already knew Kim then perhaps that would make her more partial to him… He just didn’t want Kim to get hurt. Kim didn’t deserve that. And anyway, Max couldn’t help thinking that Chloé was lucky to have a guy like Kim asking her out. If Max was in her position, he would definitely say yes!

Well, objectively speaking, of course… and anyway, he wasn’t Chloé, so it wasn’t like that was relevant at all… Kim was his friend, and Max was content to be his “wingman”, as the commoners were calling it these days. If Kim was happy, he was happy too. That was all that mattered for now.


	3. Sceptres and serpents

Along the way to Chloé’s dorm room, Kim and Max ran into Pharaoh Alix and her snake again. This time she was on rollerskates and was going through the corridors much quicker than she was probably allowed to. She stopped when she saw them.

“Oh hey Max, what’s up?”

“Not much, what’s up with you?” Max replied.

“Are you kidding me?” Kim said in disbelief. “Look, I knew you two knew each other already, neighbouring kingdoms and all that, but are you telling me you’re _friends?_ Max, you traitor! This girl tried to murder me!”

“I did not try to murder you, my snake is too well-behaved for that,” Alix said, laughing. “And of course Max is my friend. His kingdom’s the only sensible one that’s actually interested in trade. The rest of you are all missing out because the Kubdel Kingdom is very, very tech advanced, you know, you could be buying the latest tech off us but you don’t…”

“Your kingdom is the best,” Max admitted. “I wish mine was like yours, but with trade opening up more it’s getting there. That reminds me, have you got any cool new tech gadgets this time? Please say you do!”

“Yep.” Alix pressed a button on her sceptre, and the top of it opened up to reveal a flat screen on the inside. Pressing some more buttons, a blue hologram suddenly popped up, depicting an elegantly dressed young lady holding up a giant watch that showed the time. “My sceptre doubles as a phone now too.”

Max’s mouth had fallen open. “Your sceptre has advanced hologram technology now? And you combined it with a portable phone! And it has a touchscreen? No way!”

“Will you two nerds speak French?!” Kim snapped, putting his hands on his hips.

“Oh, sorry, I’ll explain,” Max said. “A telephone is a device that transforms soundwaves into electromagnetic signals to instantaneously communicate across vast distances, and a hologram projects an image made of light into a 3D space…”

“Max, _I have no idea what you’re saying_. What the heck is a hologram. In French, please, not sciencey mumbo jumbo. And how is that sceptre a phone, I thought there were only like three phones in the world or something, and–”

“Please tell me he’s kidding, Max,” Alix said. “I know I didn’t believe you when you said people from other kingdoms don’t have stuff like this, but… seriously, how can you not have telephones? How do you even live? What about, I don’t know, aeroplanes?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kim said. “They haven’t invented planes yet. It’s impossible because of like… gravity and stuff! See, I can speak sciencey too!”

“You don’t even have planes? Please tell me you at least have diesel engines…”

“Uh, we have steam engines I think, if that counts.”

Alix turned to Max, unable to believe her ears. “Max, you didn’t tell me they were all basically cavepeople!”

“Excuse me?” Kim said, walking right up to her and leaning down to her level, forgetting about the snake she was holding for a second. “You’re clearly making all this stuff up! Planes, seriously, there’s no way I’m falling for that. Next you’ll be saying you’ve got hovercrafts and jetpacks and teleporters…”

“What? That’s stupid!”

“Well your lame tech gadgets are stupid!”

Max, rolling his eyes, put his arms between them and shoved them apart. “Listen you two, will you be quiet? Your kingdoms have a large disparity in tech levels, _fine_. Kim, your kingdom is nothing to be ashamed of, most of the world is at an industrial level and you’re doing fine, mine and Alix’s kingdoms are exceptions and you’ll all get there soon. But Alix isn’t lying about the planes and phones and diesel engines. And Alix, you should be wanting to help spread education to other kingdoms rather than belittling them for things they can’t help.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Kim huffed. “At least I don’t carry around a live poisonous snake with me all the time, which is probably really unhygienic anyway!”

“This is a venomous snake, get it right,” Alix said, giving her cobra an affectionate stroke. “He isn’t unhygienic, he’s perfectly clean and healthy. And by the way I updated his name. He is now called Kim the First, since I knew him first, and you can be Kim the Second.”

“That’s stupid, I should be Kim the First. I’m the first at everything. Like did you know I’m the fastest runner in my age group in my whole kingdom? Which is a very athletically inclined kingdom, may I remind you? I bet I could easily outrun your puny little snake. Take that, Kim the First! If you try and poison me then I’ll just outrun you! You wanna go, huh? I’ll prove it!”

“Did you… just challenge my snake to a race…”

“Yeah!” Kim said, cracking his knuckles and ignoring Max facepalming. “Don’t tell me Kim the First is too scared to take me on!”

“Dude, he’s a fricking snake, he doesn’t even go that fast. Me when I’m rollerskating on the other hand…”

“Well I bet I can run faster than you can skate anyway!”

Alix grinned. “Bring it on! When are we having the race?”

“On the weekend, so we can invite everyone to watch you lose!”

“You’ll be the one who loses, but oh yeah, it’s on! I’ll see you in the courtyard on Saturday afternoon, how does that sound?”

“I can’t wait!”

“Good!” Without saying anything else, she snapped shut the hologram on her sceptre and then skated away. Max immediately wheeled round to face Kim, rubbing his forehead.

“Kim, I told you to chill out around the pharaoh of the most developed country in the world… and you _challenged her to a race_. Why are you like this?”

“I couldn’t help it!” Kim said, suddenly being hit with the impact of what he was doing now that the adrenaline of arguing was flooding out of him. “She’s so annoying, flaunting that snake everywhere and showing off about how her kingdom is the best and everything! I had to do something! Anyway, what’s she gonna do when she loses, execute me? No, she can’t do that outside her own kingdom, so whatever. It’s no big deal. I’ve got to go see Chloé now anyway, so who cares about some skater and her dumb snake? Not me. Come on Max, let’s go.”

 

Chloé was just leaving her room when Kim and Max arrived. She had to duck so that her tall wig wouldn’t hit the top of the doorway, and even had to turn sideways to be able to fit through considering how wide her skirt was. While she was busy struggling with that simple task, Kim quickly told Max to go and hide behind the nearest wall and not interfere no matter what. Once Chloé had finally made it through the door, Kim went and stood in front of her, hiding the brooch behind his back.

“Oh, it’s you,” Chloé said, raising an eyebrow – not that it made much difference when her needle thin eyebrows were already plucked into elegant arches. “You’re one of my classmates this year, aren’t you? Have we met?”

Kim gulped – he didn’t realize she wouldn’t remember him at all. That did not bode well. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’m Prince Kim of Lê Chiến, and we met a few years ago at that big banquet you had when…”

“Yes well what do you want? Get it over with, I have a hair appointment to attend, you know.” She reached up and patted the side of her wig, knocking a cloud of powder out of it. “It takes effort to look this regal all the time.”

“Um… well…” Kim opened the box and held it out in front of him, the jewelled brooch inside reflecting pale blue light onto Chloé’s face. “I know you like brooches and jewellery, and so I thought… I would get this for you… and maybe we could…”

Chloé held her fan up in front of her face and let out a high-pitched laugh. “Is that supposed to be a courting gift? Did you think I don’t already receive hundreds each day from other hopeless suitors? I will say, that’s a very nice brooch, but it’s rather pathetic of you to think I would ever be involved with someone of a lower rank than me. If you’re not an _imperial_ prince then I’m not interested at all, you might as well just be a peasant for all I care! In any case I don’t remember you, so the least you could have done is got to know me a bit first before asking me out – not that it would have made any difference! Now get out of my way. I have places to be and much more worthwhile people to be spending my time with than some lowly prince of a backwater kingdom.” Chuckling to herself, she walked down the corridor and didn’t even glance back once.

Max immediately ran over to Kim, who stood staring at the brooch in his hand. “Kim, are you okay?”

“Dang, she’s right, isn’t she? What was I thinking… she’s an imperial princess, way out of my league…”

“What? No, who cares if she’s an imperial princess or not? It was so rude of her to call you a peasant!” Max was tempted to begin explaining that the more correct and less offensive term was “commoner”, but he reminded himself that a linguistics lesson wasn’t what Kim needed right now. “And I thought that even if she did reject you, she wouldn’t do it like that, saying you’re pathetic or just rejecting you outright based on rank. I thought she would have the decency to be polite about it.”

“It’s my fault,” Kim muttered. “I should have talked to her first or something, I thought she still remembered me but apparently she didn’t. Why do I never think properly before doing stuff?”

“Kim, you deserve better than her.”

“You can’t say stuff like that!” Kim gasped. “We’re in her empire right now, isn’t that like… treason or something?”

“I don’t care, it’s the truth. She would have been a good political match despite what she said about rank, but you deserve someone who actually respects you.”

“Thanks Max, that’s nice. I guess I knew Chloé wasn’t always that great a person, but I wasn’t really thinking about that, I just… ugh, I didn’t think about it properly. Next time there’s no way I’m asking someone out on a whim.”

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“I don’t know what to do with this brooch now though…”

“Keep it for now,” Max said. “Give it to someone more worthy when the time comes.”

Kim grinned and suddenly hugged him. “You’re right, thanks Max! I’ll find someone way cooler to give this thing to! Though I guess this means I can’t really tease Ivan about Mylène anymore, can I? Or maybe I still can, since I’ve met Mylène and she’s really nice, there’s no way she would be mean to Ivan, so I could still…”

“Please don’t,” Max mumbled, his pulse suddenly going alarmingly fast for some reason. Probably because he wasn’t used to sudden hugs, that was it. In any case Kim let go of him and closed the brooch box.

“Fine, I won’t talk to Ivan,” he said. “So anyway, are you up for some more exploring? This school is pretty huge and we’ve barely seen any of it so far!”

“Good idea,” Max said, and followed Kim down the corridor. The good thing about Kim was that no matter what happened to him, he always bounced back quickly. He seemed to be in a better mood now. Hopefully Chloé’s rejection wouldn’t keep him down for too long.


	4. A kitten named Adrien

Imperial Prince Adrien, heir apparent to the Agreste Empire, finally arrived at the school early the next morning. He was quickly greeted rather enthusiastically by Chloé who ran over to hug him, accidentally buffeting him aside by the sturdy hoops holding out her skirt.

“Oh Adri-Chou, where were you? I was so worried!”

“Hi, Chloé,” he said shyly, gently pushing her off him. “Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, my father didn’t want me to attend a public school because of the presence of nobles from other countries, so he tried to cancel the train. But then my governess persuaded him to let me come here after all. As long as my personal bodyguard is on the premises.”

A large, beefy man – the bodyguard in question – walked into view behind Adrien, carrying his luggage easily on his broad shoulders.

“I’m so happy you made it,” Chloé gushed, linking her arm up with Adrien’s. “Class will start in a few minutes so if you’re not too tired I’ll take you directly there and we can set up your dorm room later. I’ll show you around the school too, my father spent a lot of money sprucing it up recently and the royal quarters look absolutely stunning, you’ll see. Oh, this is going to be so exciting!”

Without waiting for a reply, she led him away towards the classroom. All the nobles along the way stopped to stare. Imperial Prince Adrien was probably one of the most famous figures of royalty in the world, or perhaps one of the most infamous. His empire was well-known for their past military endeavours, including ruthlessly colonizing lands from all parts of the globe, leading to Agreste being one of the most widespread nations in history whose influence reached almost everywhere. Everyone was waiting for Adrien to grow up to see what kind of leader he would be – would he continue what his empire had started, and keep pushing on to conquer more land? Opinions either way were controversial. In any case it was common knowledge that his mother, previously the imperial queen-consort due to an arranged marriage, had strongly disapproved of the empire’s violent ways to the point where she filed for a divorce and disappeared, never being heard of again. No one really knew what Adrien himself thought of that, since the imperial family were always rather private people when it came to personal life. It was almost no wonder Emperor Gabriel had not wanted his son to come to a foreign school.

 

Adrien had been very much looking forward to finally starting school and meeting new people. His life had always been restricted enough that the only person his age he knew was Chloé. It was about time he got to see what other royal children were like. However, when introducing himself to the class at the start of the first lesson, he noticed that the looks most people were giving him were not exactly friendly. Why was that? He guessed it was probably because of his empire’s awkward reputation. Well, at least that made sense. He would just have to work hard to show everyone that he wasn’t like that, he wasn’t itching to suddenly take over anyone’s land without asking, he wasn’t some cruel totalitarian dictator. He wasn’t even emperor yet!

During a break later on in the day, the only person who stuck around to talk to him was Chloé, telling him all about the things he had missed yesterday.

“… and then I laughed and walked off. Isn’t that funny, Adri-Chou? How pathetic of him!”

“I don’t know, Chloé,” Adrien said. “I mean, I’ve never met this Prince Kim you speak of, but don’t you think that was a little harsh? To laugh at him like that? And surely a difference in rank is an old-fashioned reason to reject someone? I do understand if you wanted to turn him down, it’s your personal choice and that’s understandable, but calling him a peasant and mocking him for his lower status seems unnecessary…”

“Oh Adrien,” Chloé sighed, “you are so sheltered, like a sweet little kitten. This is just the way things work here in the real world.”

“I still don’t think it’s right.” He extricated himself from Chloé’s grip and walked away, not wanting to hear any more. Everything she’d had to say to him so far sounded like she was using her high rank to get away with being rude to the other students, and he just wasn’t in the mood for more of that. He got enough of that sort of thing at home.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost walked straight into someone. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Your Royal Highness,” he said quickly, stepping back and taking a look at the person in front of him. It was a boy he recognized from his class – he wouldn’t forget that vivid blue clothing anywhere.

“Hey, it’s no problem, Your Imperial Highness,” the boy said. “And by the way, you can just call me Nino, I’m cool with that. Can I just call you Adrien?”

“Yes.”

“Nice, that’s easier. Anyway I just heard you talking to Chloé and uh… do you really not know anyone else here?”

“No, just her.”

Nino gave him a pitying expression. “Dude, you seriously need new friends.”

“I want to make new friends, but I don’t think anyone here likes me.”

“Well I like you, for the record. I thought at first I wouldn’t, since you’re from Agreste, and you’re friends with Chloé and all that, but I guess that teaches me not to judge a book by its cover, right? I overheard what you said to Chloé just now and you actually sound really nice. Wanna be friends?”

He held out a closed fist. What was Adrien supposed to do with that? Was it a kind of greeting from another country that he didn’t know about? His father had made sure to teach him etiquette from many different kingdoms, but he had never come across this before.

“It’s a fist bump,” Nino said, noticing Adrien’s confusion. “You just bump your fist on mine. All the commoners are doing it these days. It’s a symbol of friendship.”

If it was a commoner thing then, well, Adrien knew he shouldn’t do it. But how else was he supposed to make new friends here? Hoping his father wouldn’t find out, he closed his fist and gently tapped it against Nino’s. “Thank you Nino, I would love to be friends.”

“Alright!” Nino laughed and gave him a friendly pat on the arm. “I’m from the Lahiffe Kingdom, by the way, in case you were wondering.”

“I wish I could visit someday. I’ve only ever been to Agreste and Bourgeois.”

“You’re always free to visit in the holidays if you want, man. And if you want to travel more I’ll try and help you make more friends, okay? We’ll prove to everyone what a nice guy you are.”

“Thank you so much Nino,” Adrien said. He felt much better now that there was someone other than Chloé for him to talk to. He still cared about her, of course, but what could he do if he didn’t agree with her behaviour? At least now there was Nino too. Nino seemed to be the kind of prince that his father would highly disapprove of – using commoner slang and mannerisms, from a diplomatic and peaceful country, seemingly very forward and overly familiar... Befriending him was almost like some small form of rebellion, in a way. Adrien realized that rather than feeling worried about it, he felt good. It felt _freeing_. And the best part was, it was exactly the kind of thing his mother would have wanted. Being friends with someone like Nino would honour her memory. Maybe it would even be like having a brother. The thought warmed his heart.

 

Kim had very much been looking forward to the first sports lesson of the year, and it had now arrived. Since Lê Chiến was famed for the sheer spirit of its athletes, Kim couldn’t wait to prove himself to all his new classmates. He would be the best and he knew it.

The first sports session was tennis since it was one of the few sports that was played in the kingdoms of every student in attendance. Making his way over to the grassy tennis courts in a far corner of the school grounds, Kim noticed that he seemed to be one of the only ones actually wearing sensible sports clothes. How was Rose supposed to run around in such a long dress like that? Did Chloé really think high heels were practical for sports? Why had Juleka not pinned her long fringe away from her face so that she could actually see? Or Nathaniel, for that matter? And why on earth was Ivan wearing so many layers? He would boil! At least Kim himself was dressed in standard sport clothing and he had made sure that Max was too – though obviously Max had been sensible enough to figure that out for himself.

“What’s your tennis racket made of?” Kim asked, since Max’s racket seemed to be far shinier than his. It certainly wasn’t wooden like all the others, but it wasn’t metal either, was it? He just couldn’t figure it out.

“It’s plastic,” Max replied.

“Oh, that stuff your glasses are made of?”

“Yes.”

“But I still don’t get it, what exactly _is_ plastic? How do you make it?”

“Synthetic material of organic polymers which can be moulded and easily manufactured–”

“Never mind, I shouldn’t have asked,” Kim chuckled. Of course Max would give a ridiculously long-winded, nerdy answer, and now was not the time for that. Now was the time for sports!

Since their sports instructor hadn’t yet arrived, Kim decided this was a good moment to let everyone know what was happening this weekend. “Listen up everyone!” he said, waving his racket in the air to get their attention. “This Saturday afternoon you are all invited to the courtyard to watch a race between me, who will be running, and Pharaoh Alix, who will be on her skates. And I am definitely going to win, so make sure you’re cheering for me!”

“I knew it was only a matter of time before you challenged someone to a race!” Marinette said, beaming and holding a hand over her eyes to keep the strong sunlight out. “I know you too well! Anyway that sounds like a lot of fun and I’ll definitely be there. In fact, why don’t I make a banner for the challenge? I love textiles and all the facilities here at this school are so cool, I really want to try them out!”

“Go for it, as long as the banner shows me being the winner!”

From somewhere behind him he heard a voice saying, “Don’t count on that, ‘cause I’m gonna be the one who wins!” Turning around he saw Alix walking up to the group, swinging her shiny plastic tennis racket in her hand. Other than her headdress she seemed to be wearing sensible sporty clothes too, so evidently she wasn’t as new to athletics as many of the other classmates seemed to be. Kim couldn’t help but reluctantly feel that it suited her – but hastily reminded himself that anyone would look good in a tank top and shorts, and it wasn’t like she was inherently cute or anything. It was just the _clothes_ that were cute. Not her.

“You can be my tennis opponent for today,” he said quickly, pointing his racket at her. “And I’m gonna win this match too.”

“Kim, you’re not that great at tennis, your speciality is running,” Max said, prodding him in the arm with his racket.

“Good, we’ll be evenly matched then,” said Alix. “My speciality is anything with wheels – rollerskates, skateboards, those new Heelys they’ve been making, even a freaking car, you name it.”

A car? A _car?_

“This time you’ve got to be lying!” Kim said. “You surely can’t already drive a car, that’s just unfair! My kingdom doesn’t even have cars!”

“What, really? Next you’ll be telling me you don’t have helicopters either…”

“ _What the heck is a helicopter?_ ”

Max stepped between them, sensing an argument. “I should just ban you two from talking to each other. Anyway it looks like that’s our teacher over there so just please be quiet and behave yourselves…”

Sure enough, the teacher had arrived. After a group warm up the class were put into teams and had various doubles matches. Kim found himself partnered up with Adrien, who actually turned out to be a surprisingly good tennis player.

“My father has always made me practise sports activities,” Adrien said when Kim asked him about it between matches. He sounded somewhat unhappy about it.

“Did you not want to, then?”

“It’s not that, it’s just…” Adrien sighed and looked at the ground. “I wish I could have chosen the sports that I wanted to do, rather than just what he signed me up for.”

Kim was taken aback. He had expected that Adrien would be just as haughty and self-absorbed as Chloé. But instead he seemed… humble?

“It’s okay, you can always just sign up for new sports stuff here,” Kim assured him. “What kind of stuff do you like doing?”

“I don’t even know, there are so many things I would love to try out. Though I suppose I do rather like fencing.”

“I think there’s a duelling club you could join. All you have to do is go to the sports office and put your name on the list. I already signed up for football.”

“Oh really? Thank you Kim, I’ll definitely do that!” He smiled rather sweetly and it didn’t seem fake at all. Huh, he really was nothing like Chloé, despite being from a place like Agreste.

“And you’re my friend now,” Kim said suddenly, surprising himself.

“Really?” Adrien seemed equally surprised. “Thanks!”

“No problem. You’re a good teammate. Now let’s go win some more matches!” He held his hand up, expecting a high five, but Adrien just looked at him blankly. “You’re meant to hit my hand with your hand. It’s called a high five.”

“Ah yes, sorry, I’m not good with commoner customs…” Adrien timidly tapped his hand against Kim’s. “High five. I’ll remember that one.”

The two of them proceeded to win almost every match that lesson – the only one they lost was against Marinette and Alix, who both seemed to be annoyingly good at tennis. Kim fully expected Alix to start gloating about her win and was already preparing to use the sun going in his eyes as an excuse for losing, but she didn’t say a word about it. All she did was say, “Good game,” and hold her hand out for a handshake, which Kim begrudgingly accepted. He let go rather quickly when he noticed his heartrate suddenly picking up – which he blamed entirely on that tank top, of course.

 

Later that day, he was busy chatting with Max when he felt someone tugging on his arm. Turning around he saw Adrien looking up at him with the most heartwarming puppy-dog eyes he had ever seen.

“Kim, I need your help,” he said quietly. “I’d ask Nino but I don’t know where he is right now and you said you’re my friend too so…”

How was it possible for someone to be so adorable? Kim was sure that if Adrien was a little kitten, he would have adopted him immediately. “Yeah sure, what’s up?”

“I want to sign up for duelling club like you suggested but uh… it’s a bit weird, but… Marinette’s there. She’s standing right in front of the office talking to Alya and um… I just get the feeling she really doesn’t like me at all. It’s not that I’m afraid to go near her, but what if she says something to me and… well that’s not why we lost the tennis against her earlier either, but…”

Adrien was afraid of Marinette? That was so stupid it was just asking to be mocked. And yet… how could Kim mock someone so clearly in need of his help? Adrien was so sweet, Kim knew he would never be able to live with himself if he messed it up now. “You want me to go with you?” he asked. “Sure, I’ll do it. Marinette’s my friend, if she says anything I’ll talk to her, okay?”

“Thank you so much!”

Leaving Max watching with an amused grin on his face, Kim walked Adrien over to the office. Marinette did throw a rather withering glance in Adrien’s direction, but continued her conversation with Alya without engaging them further.

“You know what, I think I’ll sign up for duelling club too,” Kim said. “It’ll be fun. I’ve always wanted to be able to challenge people to sword duels, how cool would that be?” Once Adrien had signed his name on the sign-up sheet Kim did so too, then walked Adrien back out until Marinette was out of view.

“Thanks Kim, that means a lot,” said Adrien. “Now I’ll know someone there.”

“Yeah, no problem. And listen, I’m sure Marinette will figure out soon enough that you’re cool. I’m guessing she doesn’t like you because you’re from Agreste and you’re friends with Chloé, who I’m pretty sure she hates, but I bet if you just talk to her she’ll realize you’re a good guy.”

“You’re right, I should try,” Adrien said, nodding. “I want to be her friend. But… maybe I’ll do it another day. I’ve never usually been around so many people before. It’s a little overwhelming.”

“You’d better go chill out then.”

“Yes… see you later Kim! And thank you once again!”

He waved and walked off towards his dorm room. Kim smiled to himself – making friends with Adrien had been a good idea. That boy was just such a nice person. It was a good thing an empire like Agreste was going to a guy like him, hopefully he’d manage to get it back on track. Though Kim did not know nearly as much about foreign affairs as he should, even he knew about the Agreste conquests and invasions, things that everyone disapproved of. Hopefully Adrien would be able to put a stop to all that once he was on the throne. He just seemed to be that sort of person.


	5. Timebreaking

Saturday afternoon was warm and sunny, with barely a cloud in the sky. The large stained-glass windows cast a pale orange glow over the courtyard. It was still too early for the race and so no one had yet arrived – except for Alix and her snake, that was. Sitting down in the corner of the courtyard, she flipped open the top of her sceptre and dialled a number. After a few rings someone picked up.

“Hi Alix, what’s up?”

“Hey Jalil,” she said, happy to hear the voice of her older brother. “Sorry I didn’t call before, I kept forgetting.”

“It’s fine. I guessed you’d forget anyway. Are you having fun at school?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice here, though it’s really old-fashioned. People don’t even have telephones here, they’re always sending messages by letter! How do they even live?”

“With difficulty, I suppose! Anyway, have you met up with anyone you know?”

“Just Max, though he hasn’t really been talking to me that much…”

“And how much trouble have you been getting into?”

“None!” she said indignantly, before realizing that might not be entirely true. “Well okay, I _may_ have got myself into a skating race later on today, but that wasn’t my fault, it was–”

“I know, Max already told me about it. Some kid with the same name as your snake challenged you to a race and you accepted.”

“Wait, what?! You’ve already spoken to Max?”

“You weren’t answering your phone when I last tried to call so I called him instead. I wanted to make sure my reckless little sister hadn’t accidentally gotten herself killed already, which I’ll be honest, is not unlikely. And the first thing he told me about was your newfound rivalry with some foreign prince!”

“Please don’t tell dad, he hates it when I do stuff like this.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him,” Jalil laughed. “Since when have I ever told on you?”

“Too many times!”

“Well I promise I won’t this time. So anyway, have you made any new friends?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “I mean, I’ve been trying, but I’m not good with people, you know that. And loads of people here already know each other. I was planning to just hang out with Max but he just spends all his time with Kim, who seems to hate me and especially hates my snake…”

“Well why don’t you make friends with him too?”

“I wish I could. Apart from Max he’s the only one in my class so far who doesn’t just tiptoe around me all the time. Everyone else just… I don’t know what it is! Whenever I try and talk to someone they always act so weird! I don’t know if it’s the snake, or the pharaoh thing, or maybe I’m just bad at making friends, but everyone’s always intimidated by me even when I’m not trying to do that! Who the hell is scared of a 4’8’’ kid with pink hair anyway?!”

“I think it’s just your personality.”

“Great, not helping. So yeah, at least Max treats me like an actual person rather than just some fearsome goddess he doesn’t want to piss off, but that’s because he knew me already, and it doesn’t make a difference now since he’s clearly much better friends with Kim. Who, like I said, hates my guts.”

“Alix, there’s a difference between someone thinking of you as a rival and outright hating you.”

“I know, I know. I guess I’ll try and annoy him less and then maybe he’ll be my friend. But when he loses the race today he is not going to be happy, is he? Ugh, maybe I just shouldn’t have accepted his stupid challenge in the first place, I’m just gonna end up being a loner this whole year with only my snake to keep me company and you’re back at home so I can only talk to you by phone and…”

“It’s okay, things will fall into place I’m sure. For the record I’m not good at making friends either.”

“Yeah, but that’s because you’re a freaking nerd.”

“You have a point. Seriously though, I’m sure you’ll… oh wait, here comes dad, he’s asking if he can speak to you–”

“NOPE, I’m busy, gotta go, see you.”

Alix quickly ended the call and closed the sceptre. If she talked to her father she knew she would get told off for not calling sooner to say she was okay, and she definitely was not in the mood for that – even being a pharaoh couldn’t let her avoid her responsibilities without reprimand. In any case she had only wanted to speak to Jalil. Though it had barely been a week since she got here she already missed having her big brother to confide in, especially since Max didn’t seem to want to hang out with her anymore. At least she could count on her pet cobra to always be around.

Soon enough the other royals arrived in the courtyard, ready to watch the race. Marinette unfurled a cute little banner that she had created up in the textiles room.

“What do you think, Kim?” she asked as Kim entered the area, waving the banner at him.

“Nice!” he replied. “And you’ll make a celebration one for me when I win, right?”

“You mean like, a prize for the winner? That sounds great!”

“So where’s Alix, anyway? Don’t tell me she was too scared to turn up.”

Alix stood up from her little corner and skated over to where the others were. “I’ve been here for like an hour already! Me and Kim the First are ready.”

“I’ll be the one who’s first, but sure.”

Taking her snake off the sceptre and wrapping him around her arm instead, Alix went and put the sceptre on the ground a safe distance away. “Hey Alya, keep an eye on my sceptre okay?”

“Don’t worry, I will, Your Majesty,” said Alya.

“And don’t call me Your Majesty.”

“Um… okay, Alix.”

“Better. And I’m serious about the sceptre, okay? It’s a royal family heirloom and if anything happens to it then I will personally kill every single one of you in this courtyard without regret.”

Alya blinked a few times and didn’t say anything. Skating back to where the starting line would be, Alix realized that threatening to murder people was probably considered intimidating, and decided to try not to do that again. But still, that sceptre really was important, and she would rather everyone stayed scared of her than let anything happen to it.

“Are you seriously gonna carry that snake with you for the race?” Kim said.

“Yeah, he loves it when I rollerskate.” She unwrapped the cobra from her arm and put him around her neck like a scarf. “I even taught him how to skateboard and I bought him a little pair of sunglasses and everything so he looks cool while doing it.”

“I’m not even gonna ask what sunglasses are…”

She stopped herself before mocking him about that, remembering that if she wanted to make friends then she would have to actually try and be less annoying.

Lining them up at the starting line, Max explained the rules (the race would be two laps around the courtyard) and then counted down for the race to begin.

The race itself was fairly brief. Kim tried his best and was indeed a very fast runner, but he couldn’t quite match the speed Alix was going at on her skates. She reached the finish line of the second lap and was welcomed by a chorus of cheering from her classmates – though they did all sound somewhat subdued.

“Kim the First, you are still officially number one!” she said, giving the snake’s hood a gentle little stroke.

“That… that wasn’t fair…” Kim had reached the finish too by now and was leaning over to catch his breath. “The sun… in my eyes… I’m taller so I couldn’t avoid it and…”

Was he really trying to make stupid excuses for losing? Couldn’t he just admit he was slower?

“Maybe that’s why you need _sunglasses_ ,” Alix snapped at him.

“Yeah well I’m still taller so there’s more air resistance, so it was still unfair and…”

“Just shut up and admit you lost!”

She went and retrieved her sceptre and then skated out of the courtyard without speaking to anyone else. What was the point of putting effort into making friends with someone who was just going to be a sore loser? Maybe she’d just have to resign herself to being a loner this year after all. After all, since Kim clearly wasn’t trying to be civil, then why should she?

But no… she was a pharaoh. A ruler of a country. She couldn’t just go around making enemies with people, especially other members of royalty, that was a sure-fire way of starting unnecessary wars. Surely if Max, a fairly nice person, was friends with Kim then he _must_ be at least alright sometimes? But then again it wasn’t her job to figure that out!

Well, if Kim was not going to treat her with respect then she just wouldn’t talk to him. And if he started being nicer to her then she would carry on trying to be his friend. Yes, it was as simple as that.

 

Meanwhile, back in the courtyard, most of the classmates were leaving while Max stood with his arms folded, looking at Kim rather sternly. “You lost fair and square, Kim, and you know it.”

“Her snake was distracting me.”

“ _Kim_ …”

“Okay fine, I guess I need more practice! I’ll beat her someday, I promise you.”

“That’s much better. And perhaps you should go congratulate her on her win.”

“What, so she can gloat at me over how much better she is?”

“No, Kim, gloating is your thing.”

“But what if she attacks me with her snake?”

Max tried not to laugh. “So that’s what this is about! You just really hate that snake, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Kim muttered, turning away. “Obviously I’m not scared of it, but…”

“It’s okay if you are.”

“I’m not!... Well, okay, kinda. But we’ve got cobras in my kingdom too and they’re always really hostile and they’ll attack you if you go near them, so I’ve always been told to stay away! It’s pretty much engrained into me! So of course I’m not exactly okay with my own classmate always dragging around some creepy reptile that could kill me painfully with a single bite!”

“I see,” said Max, resting a comforting hand on Kim’s arm. “Would it help if I told you that unlike many other species of cobra, queen cobras are very intelligent and well-behaved? If it wasn’t for their venom, they’d essentially be harmless. Owning one is still considered unusual but it’s more like having a pet cat or dog – just a sweet little animal companion to be your friend. I promise Alix’s snake won’t harm you on its own accord. She’s owned it for years and it’s been nothing but good-tempered the whole time, so it really won’t attack anyone unless she tells it to, and she’s certainly not going to do that.”

“But what if she does?”

“I’m sure she won’t. I know she seems almost as hot-headed as you are but she’s already a pharaoh and knows she has her country’s reputation to uphold, so she’s not going to be responsible for causing anyone’s death. Does that put your mind somewhat at ease?”

“Yeah, I guess… How are you always so smart, Max? I swear it’s like you know everything. It’s awesome.”

Max was not only surprised at Kim’s sudden compliment, but was also surprised at how much he felt his face heating up at hearing it. “Oh, I just… research a lot…”

“Huh. I wish I could be that smart.”

Max tried to say something in reply but his mind had gone completely blank. It must be because he wasn’t used to receiving compliments – most people seemed to pay no attention to his intelligence. But Kim, his friend, said he wanted to be smart like him…

It took Max several moments to realize that Kim had already wandered off. Whoops. He wasn’t sure why he kept getting so oddly lost in thought these days, though perhaps it was just that being in a new place with a lot of new people had given him a lot to think about. Anyway, he quickly went and caught up with Kim so that they could walk back to their dorms together. Having his best friend easily available to hang out with all the time was so nice. Even if they weren’t doing anything in particular, just spending time with him felt good. Joining this school had definitely been a good choice.


	6. Balancing act

Duelling club turned out to be really fun, though Kim was annoyed to realize that Adrien was already much better at it than he was. He resolved to practise as much as he could and beat that kid someday. At least Adrien was always so overwhelmingly nice about everything. Getting to hang out with him so much was going to be fun.

Kim returned to his room after the first session to see that a letter had arrived from his family. He quickly opened it and skimmed the contents, not really wanting to bother reading through all of whatever boring stuff they were probably telling him to do. Wait a second – they had mentioned Adrien? What was that about? Slowing down, he read that section properly.

_…hostilities between Lê Chiến and Agreste, since they have taken over parts of our land unlawfully, so do not associate with Imperial Prince Adrien as it would give the impression that we approve of his empire’s illegal occupation of provinces that rightfully belong to us._

What? Don’t talk to Adrien? But Adrien was his friend! He couldn’t just stop talking to him over something neither of them even had control over anyway! That was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

Kim scrunched the letter up into a ball and then aimed a shot at the bin, but it missed. No! He was supposed to be good at basketball! First losing the race, then not being good at duelling, and now this. It just wouldn’t do. He needed to keep up his country’s athletic reputation – and his own, of course. And he had to start right now!

After a quick stretch and warm-up, he left his room and went for a run. These corridors were so nice for running down, since they were all so long and winding that he felt like he could go for hours without going past the same place twice. Not many people seemed to be around either at this time of evening so all he could hear were his footsteps echoing against the walls and the distant ceiling.

Ah yes, this was the life. How could people choose to be lazy when they could be getting fitter instead? It felt so fulfilling!

“Excuse me young man, running in the corridors is strictly forbidden!”

He stopped and turned around to see that the harsh voice belonged to one of his teachers, Lady Mendeleiev. She was walking towards him with a very stern look on her face.

“But… I’m a prince,” said Kim, trying to catch his breath.

“Prince or no prince, you still have to obey the rules,” Lady Mendeleiev said, somehow being tall enough to tower over him. “The contract your parents signed when they enrolled you here clearly states that running is only allowed outside or within the designated sports areas. I’m afraid I’ll have to give you a detention and send a letter to inform your parents about this.”

“What? No! My parents will be so mad, I didn’t know about the no running thing, I swear I won’t do it again…”

“That’s no excuse. Being a prince does not mean you can get away with misbehaviour, Your Highness. Now, I’m already on my way to supervise today’s detention, so would you like to accompany me and serve your detention now or do it next week instead?”

“I’ll just do it now I guess…”

“Good, better to get it over with sooner rather than later. Follow me.”

Lady Mendeleiev led Kim down some rather more rusty-looking corridors and he realized that this must be the nobility area of the school. He hadn’t been here before. Though it still looked very nice, it was much more sparsely decorated and there were far more students around – all nobles, of course. They all got out of the way rather quickly when they saw him coming. It must have been because of his status as royalty, but how did they know that? He wasn’t even wearing his normal royal outfit, just loose clothes that were comfortable and practical for being active.

By the time they reached the classroom in which detention was being held, Kim was feeling quite apprehensive. He had never bothered to read the rule book so he had no idea what was in store for him here. How long would it even take? Maybe he should have asked about it properly first.

Most of the other kids in the room must have been nobility since he didn’t recognize them. However there was one person sitting atop a desk in the corner that he recognized far too well – Pharaoh Alix. At least this time she didn’t have that annoying snake with her. As soon as she saw him she came over to speak to him, while Lady Mendeleiev set something up in the centre of the room.

“Oh good, at least there’s one person here I know,” said Alix.

“Why are you here?” Kim said. “Did your snake kill someone or something?”

“No, of course not! I got detention for skating in the corridors, which is stupid because the rules don’t specifically say anything about not being allowed to rollerskate… And why are you here?”

“Running in the corridors.”

“Oh yeah, of course it would be something like that…”

“So where’s your snake?”

“He just ate so he’s resting.”

“Wait, do snakes need to rest after eating?”

“Yep. They swallow stuff whole and then digest it slowly. At least, my snake does. Back at home we just used to order dead mice and stuff for him but here in the school grounds there’s plenty of live ones for him to go chase down. He loves it.”

She had a kind of glow in her eyes when talking about the snake, even more than when she was talking about rollerskating. Surely she couldn’t care about that scaly little monster that much? But she carried on gushing about it, and Kim decided it wasn’t worth telling her that he wasn’t listening. In any case she seemed to be mentioning words like “death” and “killing” and “venom” a lot, and he had only just started combatting his fear of the darn thing, he didn’t want to bring it back by paying attention.

Lady Mendeleiev finished setting up a weird apparatus in the middle of the room and called everyone round. It seemed to be a long, thin wooden plank raised slightly off the ground and held at either end by trestles.

“Since most of you are here due to refusing to keep to a sensible pace while in the corridors, today’s detention will enforce the kind of behaviour you should be adhering to,” Lady Mendeleiev said. She walked over to the teacher’s desk, where there was a large stack of books, and picked one up. “I’m sure you all know of this particular exercise, it’s quite common. One places a book on one’s head and then walks slowly down the balancing beam without letting the book fall. That should teach you all how to walk sensibly without endangering other students. And of course, royalty and nobility must carry themselves gracefully at all times, so this will be good training for your future in general. Now, who wants to go first?”

One of the nobles went first, and dropped the book at least eight times before finally managing to get all the way down the beam without letting it fall. The next noble took even longer, somehow being so off-balance that he fell off the beam himself a few times too. Lady Mendeleiev’s impatient comments were not helping matters either.

“This is stupid,” Kim muttered under his breath.

“I know right?” Alix replied quietly. “As someone who’s already a monarch I can assure you that in real life no one gives a crap whether you’re walking in a perfectly straight line or not so like, there’s not even a point to this.”

“But you’re not really a normal monarch, are you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Well you just said the word ‘crap’…”

“Yeah, fair enough.” She smiled at him – not the usual competitive smirk, but an actual genuine smile for once, and it somehow caught him off-guard how different she looked. Very off-guard.

“And you’re gonna look like a loser with a book on your head,” he said quickly.

“Excuse me?” She dropped the smile immediately.

“No wait, I meant…”

“Forget it.” She glared at him for a few seconds before going and standing several metres away instead.

Kim silently cursed himself – why didn’t he ever think before saying stuff? He was supposed to be trying _not_ to make an enemy out of the kid in his class most likely to kill him. And anyway, why had he even said that? Just when they were actually starting to get along? It was like he acted even more stupid than usual when talking to her, for some reason.

After what seemed like forever it was finally Kim’s turn. Lady Mendeleiev handed him a book and, feeling rather ridiculous, he put it on his head. Before he had even stepped onto the balancing beam it started slipping off, so he pushed it back into place and went a bit slower this time. He managed to get perhaps a fifth of the way down the beam when the book fell off before he could stop it.

“Try again,” Lady Mendeleiev said, sighing and glancing at the clock.

Kim picked the book up and went back to the start. This was way harder than it had looked. The next time the book fell off in the same place, and the time after that he didn’t even take two steps before it fell yet again. Lady Mendeleiev looked incredibly unimpressed.

“You’re losing patience and it’s throwing off your balance. Take a deep breath and calm your nerves before you try again.”

Take a deep breath! Calm your nerves! Honestly, this was the most stupid, pointless, humiliating, ridiculous thing in the universe. Kim stomped back to the start, very seriously considering snapping the stupid book’s spine and then snapping the balancing beam while he was at it. He could have been doing so many other things with his time right now. Going for a run (outside), practising tennis, practising duelling, hanging out with Max… Instead he was stuck here in detention losing a battle against a book!

After failing many more times, Lady Mendeleiev asked the noble whose turn it had been previously to help him out. Though Kim hadn’t really been paying attention before he had vaguely noticed that this had happened with a few of the others too, though not all of them. How embarrassing.

Mireille, Countess of Caquet, nervously came forward and curtseyed before holding out her hand for Kim to take if he needed help with balancing. Feeling like an idiot, Kim stepped back onto that dratted balancing beam and took Mireille’s hand. It was a little easier to balance with the extra support and this time he actually managed to reach more than halfway before the book fell off. Well, at least that was an improvement. Sure enough the next few times he got closer and closer to the end, and eventually he made it.

“Well done, good work,” Lady Mendeleiev said, though somehow sounding like she didn’t mean it at all. She took the book off him. “Looks like there’s only one person left now, so it shouldn’t take too long… _hopefully_ …”

It was indeed Alix’s turn. Kim had expected her to just put the book on top of her headdress, but instead she lifted the headdress off and set it down on the table and…

Wait, she had _short hair?_ Somehow he had thought that headdress must be hiding long, regal pink tresses, but no – it was short and messy, sticking out in every direction. He had never seen a member of royalty with hair like that before. It was so weird and unusual… yes, that was why he couldn’t take his eyes off it. Because it was weird. Definitely.

Despite having enough balance to rollerskate with ease, Alix was absolutely terrible at the book balancing exercise. Not only that, but it was clear she was getting more and more impatient every time she dropped the book, and her fiery expression was enough to get all the nobles slowly creeping backwards until they were right at the edges of the room. Even Lady Mendeleiev didn’t offer any unhelpful commentary. Finally Alix snapped, “If someone doesn’t get over here to help me finish this stupid thing _right now_ , I will throw this book at someone’s face hard enough to send their teeth into the back of their brain.”

Lady Mendeleiev didn’t even say anything, she just turned and looked at Kim with an expression on her face that could possibly have been pity. Kim gulped – why did he have to be the one to help out a temperamental pharaoh who would probably wring his neck if her mood got any worse? He walked over and held out his hand, fully expecting her to crush it tight enough to cut off his circulation or something. To his surprise she just held it normally. Her hand was so tiny, just like the rest of her…

Kim quickly looked away. For some reason she was making him nervous. Not because he was scared! He definitely wasn’t scared of her, that was ridiculous. Maybe he was scared of the snake, but not her. That was for sure. She was human, just like everyone else. No reason to be afraid. And anyway, she didn’t even have the snake with her right now, so what was making him nervous? It definitely wasn’t fear, no, it was… well it was something familiar, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it…

Oh yes. This was the nervousness he had felt when he was about to give that brooch to Chloé. Okay, that was alright then. It meant he wasn’t scared of Alix after all, thank goodness. It just meant that he…

Wait a second… no! That was worse! That was way, way, _way_ worse! Surely it couldn’t be true! But when he chanced another quick look at her out of the corner of his eye, seeing her look of concentration mixed with fury as she tried to cross the beam for the hundredth time, he felt like his heart skipped at least eight beats. Oh man, it was true after all… this was not fear. This was a crush!

How the heck had that happened? She wasn’t even nice! (But then again, Chloé wasn’t either and Kim had still fallen for her somehow…) In fact, if she ever found out Kim liked her, well, she’d probably treat him much worse than Chloé had. They were rivals after all. Knowing her, she’d probably get her pet snake to swallow him whole and slowly digest him or whatever she had been talking about earlier. It was so unfair! There were plenty of other pretty girls in his class, why couldn’t he like one of them instead? As opposed to the one who was really annoying?

“Ah yes, finally!” Having reached the end at last, Alix hopped off the beam and let go of Kim’s hand to chuck the book aside. “So if everyone’s done then can we leave now?”

“Yes, and hopefully I won’t see any of you in detention again,” Lady Mendeleiev replied. She started to disassemble the balancing beam while the nobles started to leave.

Alix put the headdress back over her hair and then turned back to Kim. “I’m glad that’s over, I’m definitely gonna try and avoid detention from now on, that’s for sure. Anyway, are you going back to the dorms now?”

Oh boy, she was talking to him… If she spoke to him for much longer she would definitely figure it out, and he did not want that to happen. Another Chloé-type rejection was the last thing he wanted. Well, if he wanted this stupid crush thing to go away without anyone ever knowing about it then it was probably best for him to firmly remind his own brain that she was his rival, and for that he had to actually act like it.

“No, I’m just gonna go explore this part of the school because I don’t want to have to run into you again!” he said, then walked off quickly without looking at her.


	7. 90% chance of death

Max was already learning so much over the next few weeks. Since recent hostilities had left most of the kingdoms rather isolated from each other without much contact or trade, he hadn’t been able to learn a lot about other places while he had been back at home, but now it felt like the whole world was suddenly at his fingertips. It was absolutely fascinating!

Who would have known that the Lahiffe Kingdom, of all places, had fertile plains completely dedicated to growing potato crops? Or that the remote Haprèle Kingdom had some of the most beautiful mountainous scenery in the world? And he had only heard stories about the incredible art and architecture of the Kurtzberg Kingdom, and now he was able to see some for himself just by asking his own classmate.

That was barely even the beginning of it. Despite most other kingdoms having comparatively low technology levels, they still had so much to offer. Why, oh why had previous generations of rulers not opened up their countries to allow this spread of knowledge and culture? Thank goodness places like this school existed, where people from all over the world could come together and share all of this. Max decided right then that he would do everything in his power to persuade the other kingdoms to lift their trade restrictions. Hopefully that would help the whole world advance together, ushering in a new age of peace and prosperity, where everyone would get along with each other and there would be no problems…

But of course that was too much to ask for. Peace? Prosperity? When people like his own friend Kim were going to be future leaders? He may as well say goodbye to the idea of global peace forever.

“Kim, you’re going to end up starting a war or something,” Max warned him, glancing up from his homework. Kim was trying to do his homework too but was procrastinating by making origami out of the paper he was meant to be writing on. Rather messy origami, too.

“I haven’t done anything wrong,” Kim muttered.

“Oh really? I heard you snapped Alix’s pencil the other day.”

“That was totally an accident.”

“Mhm. And I suppose it was also an accident that time you slammed the door in her face?”

“Obviously! She’s so tiny, I didn’t even notice her, so…”

Max rolled his eyes. “Can’t you at least try to get along with her? I don’t want my two friends to end up at war with each other, thank you very much. I think you two could be good friends if you were actually nice to her.”

“Oh Max, you know I love you, but I can’t be friends with someone like her!”

Max gulped and tried not to stare at his beautiful friend’s face. _Oh Max, you know I love you…_ He pushed the phrase out of his mind. Kim meant it platonically, obviously. And anyway, not for the first time Max wondered if Kim’s sudden unexplained idiotic turn for the worse meant that something had happened at that detention. Maybe something decidedly other than platonic. A certain word kept popping into his mind to describe Kim’s recent behaviour if that was the case… _tsundere_. That wasn’t a good thing.

“You absolutely can be friends with her,” Max said. “If you’re friends with me, and I’m friends with her, then it’s definitely possible.”

“But she hates me anyway.”

“That’s only because you’re being a jerk. You managed to make friends with Adrien, didn’t you? And you’re good friends with Marinette too. I know you can do it. You just need to get over yourself first.”

“Can we just talk about something else?” Kim said quickly. “I’ve really gotta get this homework done, I don’t want to get another stupid detention.” He looked down at his crumpled piece of paper and frowned. “Uh… I don’t really get any of it. Which rank is below count and above baron and how would they be addressed? I don’t even know what that means. And what the heck is a courtesy title? Max please help…”

It took all Max’s self-restraint not to just take the piece of paper and do Kim’s homework for him. This wasn’t even difficult. Viscount was between count and baron, and one would be addressed as “Your Lordship”, and a courtesy title was… No, he shouldn’t. “Do your own homework, Kim,” he said. “I won’t help you with it until you stop being mean to Alix.”

“Hey, and what about her though? Threatening me with that snake? And making fun of my country for not having like… helicopters or whatever it was? She’s not exactly a nice person either!”

“Perhaps you’re both being idiots, but you in particular are being much more of an idiot. So until you stop doing that you can do your homework without my help.”

Kim pouted but didn’t say anything else.

 

Sports day was quickly arriving now that September was almost at an end. The weather here in this part of the Bourgeois Empire was still fairly warm at this time of year so it would be held outside in the grounds. Kim just couldn’t wait. This would be the perfect opportunity for him to show off how great he was at sports, and by extension, his whole kingdom! Lê Chiến was already famous for that, after all. Sports day was definitely going to be his day.

Since it wasn’t a mandatory event a lot of people weren’t going to be there – he guessed that Prince Nathaniel probably wasn’t going to attend, since he seemed to always try his best to stay as far away from other people as he could – but Kim decided to head down to the grounds early and get in a warm-up first. Max was planning to meet him there a little later, too busy in the library at the moment researching about something called a “constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy”, whatever that even meant. Kim knew he should probably spend more time on his school work like Max was doing, but that was just so much effort! And it was boring, too! If he was going to be at this school for three whole years then there was plenty of time for that later, so why not just have fun for now?

Walking down the corridors he heard a voice somewhere nearby and stopped… ugh, it was Alix. And Juleka too, judging by the quiet mumbling replies. He didn’t know anything about Juleka, she seemed alright, but today was not the kind of day he wanted to run into Alix. Hang on a second, she had just said his name… what was she talking about?

“…and yeah, Kim seems intimidating but he’s actually really sweet!”

Sweet? No way! He ran forwards and turned the corner to see–

Oh. It was just that stupid snake she was talking about. She had it wrapped around her arm and was showing it off to Juleka, who was leaning right in its face and gazing at it with her spooky red eyes.

“Awesome,” Juleka said. “Has he killed anyone?”

“No, he’s way too nice for that.”

“But… he could kill someone if he wanted, right?”

“Oh yes, definitely.”

Juleka grinned, and Kim noticed her teeth seemed to be rather sharp. “That’s so awesome. Hey, do you think you can get more deadly cobras as pets? The ones that attack and kill people?”

“Sure you can, but it would probably kill you too if you weren’t careful.”

“That would be the coolest way to die. Agonizing death by snake bite. I would love that.”

Okay wow, that was weird. Kim walked past them muttering, “You guys are crazy…” Out of the corner of his eye he saw them turning to look at him for a second, but neither of them said anything. Good.

 

Sure enough, Kim absolutely excelled at the sporting activities. He came first in the 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, even the hurdles. He did lose a duelling match, but at least that was against Adrien, his friend, so that wasn’t too bad. Adrien went on to win the duelling competition anyway and Kim did find it in his heart to feel proud of him. There were also some events that Kim did not take part in, like jousting, since those weren’t big in his kingdom and he hadn’t really tried them much. Anyway, that seemed quite old-fashioned. Jousting? Really? What was this, medieval times?

He wasn’t planning to take part in the archery competition either but he changed his mind when it turned out that Max had decided to try it, saying that archery was a fairly “mathematical” sport and that it couldn’t be that hard. Kim was surprised to find that he really was quite good at it despite never having even tried it before – he was somehow even better than Max.

The sillier races took place towards the end of the day. Kim managed to do fairly well in the sack race, and tried his best in the egg and spoon race but somehow got beaten out by Alya and Chloé, who seemed to have their own personal rivalry going on between them. The trouble began when it came to picking pairs for the three-legged race. Kim had been planning to do it with Max, but it turned out that Max had already got bored and left. In fact, most of the class had by this point, and the royals were not allowed to team up with the nobles so there weren’t many people left to choose from.

“Hey Marinette, wanna team up for the three-legged race?” Kim asked.

“Ah sorry Kim, I’ve already teamed up with Alya!” Marinette replied. “But I could help you find a partner! Hmm, let’s see, who’s still here… Nino’s teamed up with Adrien I think, so not them… maybe you could... Oh hey Alix! Come over here! You’re really short, Kim’s really tall, it would be so funny–”

“What? No, I’m not teaming up with her!” Kim snapped, stepping away as Marinette grabbed Alix by the arm and pulled her over.

“I know you like winning and it would be harder like this, but come on, it would be hilarious! You’re both sporty and everything!”

“Yeah, Kim,” said Alix. “It’ll be fun.”

He shook his head. “No way. I’d rather just not do the race.”

“What? Why not? Weren’t you just asking Marinette to team up with you?”

“Yeah, exactly! Marinette! Not you!”

“Are you kidding me?!”

Kim had just about had enough. There was barely anyone left here anyway, no point staying. “I’m leaving!” he said, and stormed off.

 

Slightly later, in his room trying to do homework but feeling like bashing his head on the wall would be more productive, there was a knock at his door. He stood up and opened it to see Alix there, looking absolutely livid, with her pet snake wrapped around her shoulders and somehow looking in as much of a bad mood as she was. Without even saying anything she shoved Kim aside, stepped into the room and slammed the door shut behind her. “Kim, what the _hell_ is your problem?!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m talking about!” Her hands were curled into fists and she seemed alarmingly ready to start throwing out punches. Kim quickly took a step away from her.

“What, just because I didn’t want to do that stupid race?”

“This isn’t just about that race! This is about how much of a jerk you’ve been lately! And don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve been nice to everyone else, just not me. Making friends with Adrien, asking out Chloé – yes I know about that, we all do – always hanging out with my friend Max and trying to get him to do your homework for you…”

“Max doesn’t do my homework for me!”

“Stop trying to change the subject. The point is I know you see me as a rival for some reason, whether it’s the snake or the skating or being Max’s friend or whatever, but at least I’ve been trying to be civil. And I know I’m not that good at it. But I’ve been doing a hell of a lot better than you have!”

Alright, that was kind of true. Kim just didn’t want to admit it. “Your snake tried to kill me,” he huffed.

“If my snake wanted you dead, you’d already be dead, trust me. That being said, I think he’s getting peckish...”

The snake hissed and snapped its teeth menacingly. Kim took another step backwards, very much not liking where this was going. Surely she wouldn’t kill him with that snake, would she?

“So anyway, why do you hate me?” she continued, the snake still hissing and baring its fangs rather ominously. “Are you just jealous of my country’s technology or something? Still a sore loser that I beat you in that race? Are you scared of snakes and thinks that gives you a valid reason to act like a douche? Because that’s what you are, in case you didn’t know. And me and my snake both really, really hate douches.”

Okay, he _really_ did not like where this was going. That snake looked hungry. Could cobras swallow humans whole? Or did they kill them with venom first? How long would that take? Would it be painful?

“Don’t forget, I’m a pharaoh, I outrank you by lightyears. I run an entire country and I can do whatever the hell I want. If I want someone dead, all I have to do is say so, and that’s it for them. They’re fricking dead. So if you think you can get away with being an absolute moron without having to face the consequences, you’re even more stupid than I thought!”

Dead? Did she actually say dead? Oh boy, she was going to kill him with that snake, he was certain about it now, never mind what Max said about that. He had messed up so bad. Seeing that snake, flicking its tongue out like a little lizard, clearly ready to pounce on him and kill him in the most painful way possible… He sank to his knees, terrified. “I’m sorry…”

“Fine, but don’t think a tiny little apology is going to solve everything, because it won’t! Unless you actually change your attitude then saying sorry is meaningless, so… Wait, are you – are you _crying?_ ”

“Please don’t tell your snake to kill me,” Kim mumbled, hastily wiping tears out of his eyes. He hadn’t cried in years at least, he was sure, and was not happy about breaking that streak. Hopefully no one else would find out.

“What? No, I’m not going to... I would never actually kill anyone! I was just angry!” She sounded less upset now, more concerned. “Did you really think I was going to tell my snake to kill you?”

“Uh… pfffft, no…”

She sighed. “Kim, are you afraid of me?”

“Nope.”

“Answer truthfully or I’ll go get my sceptre and whack you over the head with it.”

“Well okay, I hate snakes so your snake is kinda scary,” he admitted. “And… I guess… since you control the snake… well…” He wasn’t quite sure when he had stopped being so afraid of the snake and more afraid of Alix herself. Of course that was all tangled up in how he didn’t like her and thought of her as a rival and also had a crush on her… It was no wonder he hadn’t properly noticed.

“Yeah, I thought so.” She gave her snake a stroke and it stopped hissing, immediately backing down and resting its head calmly on her shoulder. “I should have known that would happen. Everyone always ends up scared of me. I guess my problem is a bit similar to yours, huh? You’re just an idiot, and I accidentally scare away anyone I want to be friends with.”

“Wait… friends?”

“Yeah, of course. I’ve been trying to be your friend, since you’re friends with Max and you didn’t act all weirdly over-respectful around me just because of me being a pharaoh, like everyone else does all the time. But now I’ve gone and messed that up, haven’t I? You’re scared of me now, just like all the others. Of course I can’t take all the blame for that, since you’ve been acting like such a jerk that I didn’t really have much of a choice but to confront you about it…”

So she really had been trying to make friends with him? Huh… maybe Max had been right after all. Maybe they would make good friends. Kim took a deep breath, thankfully feeling a little less afraid now.

“Okay, I was a jerk,” he said. “I was just… yeah, okay, I was jealous of your country’s tech. And annoyed you beat me in that race. And hated your snake. And just thought you were kind of annoying in general.” _And trying to get rid of this stupid crush on you,_ he added silently. “But I really went overboard with that, and it would be cool to make friends, so uh… I get if you don’t want to now, but… I really am sorry. I’ll try and be less of an idiot. Max says I never think stuff through properly.”

“Max is definitely right about that. But…” She smiled suddenly, that genuine smile again. “He says that about me as well. I guess me suddenly storming in here and lowkey threatening to kill you may have been overboard too. But hey, it’s not like I’ve exactly got many friends, so I may as well make a new one. Are we friends then?”

She held out her hand for a handshake. Kim accepted, relieved.

“Anyway, I think if I run back now I might have time for the last few sports day races,” Alix said. “Are you coming?”

“No, I think I should probably do my homework…”

“Wait, really? Max would be proud! I guess I’ll see you later then, new friend.”

“Yeah, see you.”

She left the room. Oh thank goodness, that had turned out alright… He had been so sure for a few seconds that he really was going to die. And yet here he was, alive, with a new friend too. He certainly hadn’t expected the outcome to be that good. He wasn’t even sure he deserved it, looking back.

And the truth was that he didn’t want to go back to the sports day because he still felt shaky, like if someone suddenly startled him he’d have a heart attack and die. After all, he had just been in very close proximity to an angry cobra, so it was probably best to just rest a little for now. He had a reputation to keep up.

There was still one thing left to take care of, though. That annoying crush. If Alix was going to be his friend now then he’d better try and get rid of it before she noticed, or even worse, before anyone else noticed. Hopefully it would go away soon. After all, there were plenty of other cute girls at this school to fall for, weren’t there? Surely it was only a matter of time.


	8. Chick???

Over the next few duelling club sessions Kim found that he was improving very quickly. He had almost managed to beat Adrien that last time, and Adrien was one of the best there.

“You did so well today, Kim!” Adrien told him after the lesson, beaming. “I’m really proud!”

“Thanks!”

“No problem! You’re so good at lots of different sports, it’s so inspiring.”

“Yeah, if only I was that good at school work too,” Kim muttered, unhappily remembering the pile of homework that awaited him. “I always have to get Max to help me with that.”

“Max is so clever. You two are so lucky to have each other as friends.”

That was just… that was just too adorable. Why was Adrien so adorable all the time, like an actual angel sent down from the heavens to bless all the lowly mortals? It was almost too much to deal with.

“And I guess I’m lucky to have Nino as a friend, too,” Adrien continued. “He’s so nice. He even helped me make friends with Marinette!”

“Oh, so Marinette’s okay with you now?”

“Yeah!” Adrien smiled so brightly his whole face seemed to shine. “Nino talked to her about me, and then later on it was really sunny outside and I saw her and gave her my parasol. Now she’s being really nice to me! So is Alya! Those two are such lovely people, I’m so glad I get to be their friend.”

“Same here,” Kim said. “Alya seems nice, and I’ve known Marinette since we were little kids.”

“Do you think you’re going to ask her to the autumn ball then?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about that, isn’t it in like two months or something?”

Adrien giggled. “It’s in a week, Kim.”

“Wait, what? A week? Since when?” Kim thought back to the calendar they had received at the start of the year… oh yes. The autumn ball would take place in October. This week. “I totally forgot! Wait, am I supposed to ask someone to go with me?”

“You don’t have to, of course. You could just go by yourself or with friends. You don’t even have to go at all if you don’t want, it’s a formal event but not mandatory. Though if you do ask someone then it has to be from the royal class.”

“How do you even know all this?”

“We were told about it…”

“Oh, I guess I forgot.” Kim didn’t want to admit that he never paid attention to what the teachers were saying half the time.

“So are you going to ask Marinette?” asked Adrien.

“Nah, probably not, there’s someone else I would… well, I don’t know, but…”

“Oh okay, so I can tell Nino to ask Marinette? He wants to go with her. And I guess I could always go with Alya then! It’ll be fun!”

“Yeah, you four seem to make a good group.”

“Thanks, Kim! I’ll go tell him that now. See you later!” Adrien gave him a huge smile, then ran off.

Kim walked back up to his own room to see that another letter had arrived from his family. He quickly skimmed over it. Mostly it was them telling him off about getting a detention – oh yes, he’d practically forgotten about that. It wasn’t exactly something he wanted to think about, especially since that was back before he had made friends with Alix, and he knew perfectly well he had been an idiot about all that. It was a lot nicer now that they actually got along.

Oh, and his family were also reminding him about how totally evil the Agreste Empire was, and how that meant Adrien must also be totally evil, and not to talk to him under any circumstances… Yikes. Kim ripped the letter up into tiny little shreds. Adrien was a pure sweetheart, an actual saint, there was no way he was going to ruin their friendship for anything! Especially not just stupid politics!

But wait… was he causing some kind of awkward situation by being friends with Adrien? Should he bring it up with him? It didn’t seem like Adrien knew about this, though, that kid was just so kind and sweet all the time. Perhaps it was best not to say anything for now. Anyway, how were his parents supposed to know he and Adrien were friends? He hadn’t told them. All they knew was that Adrien was in his class and that was it. If they never found out then it was no problem! He’d just have to keep quiet about it.

 

Something rather unusual happened the next day. It was immediately after class and most people were still in the classroom.

“Your Royal Highness Princess Marinette, will you go to the autumn ball with me?”

Everyone turned to look. Nathaniel was standing there, his face almost as bright red as his hair, holding out a bunch of flowers at Marinette and looking nervously at his shoes.

“Oh, um…” Marinette put on a somewhat uneasy smile. “That’s very kind of you, Nathaniel. You’re very sweet. But I’ve already accepted an invitation from my friend Nino, so I’ll be going with him, and…”

There was no need for her to finish since Nathaniel had dropped the flowers and run out of the room.

“That was rather lame,” Chloé said loudly, chuckling slightly. “Both the fact that he asked you, and how weakly you turned him down. You could be a bit stronger with your rejection or else all sorts of losers will think they have a chance.”

“That’s not nice, Chloé,” Marinette said, turning to face her. “He’s allowed to ask me out if he wants, and I’m allowed to turn him down politely if I want. Not all of us are going to treat our unwanted suitors as badly as you keep telling everyone you treated Kim.”

Kim blushed and looked away as everyone turned towards him. Huh, so everyone did know about that after all, since Chloé had been telling people. That was rather embarrassing. At least no one was really on Chloé’s side…

“Well I’ll be attending the ball with someone much better than you or that shy tomato loser,” Chloé said. “I’ll be going with Adrien. Isn’t that right, Adri-Chou?”

Adrien smiled nervously. “Um, actually Chlo, I told Alya I would go with her, so…”

“What? That’s ridiculous!” She snapped her fan shut. “Never mind then. I don’t need a date for the ball anyway. None of you are good enough for me. Come on Sabrina, let’s go somewhere else. I’ve had enough of these plebeians for today.” She waltzed out of the room and Sabrina quickly followed her, carrying all her books. There were a few seconds of silence before everyone continued going about their day.

“I told you Nath likes Marinette, you owe me a milkshake now,” Alix said to Kim. “They have chocolate in this kingdom, right? I want a chocolate one.”

“Yeah, yeah, fine…”

He wasn’t thinking about that, he was thinking about the ball suddenly. Of course he didn’t have to ask anyone, and he certainly didn’t want to be turned down if he did, but… what if…

“Alix, are you going to the ball with anyone?” he asked her.

“No way, I’m not going to some boring ball.”

“Oh, ‘cause… if you’re not going because no one asked you, you could… just go with me or something…”

Oops, that had sounded a lot smoother in his head. She was looking rather unimpressed.

“You’re not the first one to ask me, Kim. Some chick already did. And I said I’m not going.” She turned and walked out of the room. Well, at least he wasn’t the first one to be turned down by her, and anyway, it didn’t sound like it was anything personal, she just didn’t want to go no matter who it was with, so…

Wait a second.

Did she just say… _chick?_

Meanwhile Princess Alya had overheard and was having the exact same thought.

“Hey Alix, wait!” she called, walking quickly down the corridor after her. “Did you say you were asked out by a chick? As in…”

“Yes, as in a girl,” said Alix.

“A girl? Like… not a guy?”

“Yes, Alya. A girl. Lady. Woman. Gal. Chick. Dudette. Person who identifies on the feminine side of things.”

“Who was it?”

“I’m not gonna just tell you, sheesh.”

“But… was it at least someone royal?”

“Yeah.”

Alya gasped. “Are you telling me there’s a lesbian in our class?”

“Lesbian, bi, who knows, I didn’t ask. But yes, there is a girl in our class who likes girls.”

“Yes!” Alya pumped her fist in the air. “I knew I wasn’t the only one! I’ve got to find out who this mystery girl is! Are you sure you won’t tell me?”

“All I’ll tell you is that she’s not that subtle about it. And if you find out you’d better not spread it around because most of these kingdoms are so backwards they’d fricking lynch her on the spot, okay?”

“Oh yes, I swear I won’t tell anyone. Even my kingdom’s not really okay with that sort of thing.”

“Then your kingdom needs to get a bloody move on. Everyone around here seems so backwards about literally everything, honestly…”

“Hey Alix? Um, is it okay if I ask… are you into girls? Or guys? Or both? Like, what are you?”

She regretted asking it almost straightaway. For the first time, Alix looked somewhat vulnerable, like she didn’t quite know what to say.

“I’m… well I think I’m…” She looked away. “Can I just not answer that?  At least until after the oracle session day?”

“Of course, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to just put you on the spot–”

“Whatever.” She turned away and walked off.

Well, that was interesting. So there was another girl in the class who liked girls, huh? Alya just needed to find out who it was. She had to know! And as for Alix, well, Alya was curious about that too now. What was she? Was she just unsure? Did she just not want to say? And what was that about waiting until after the oracle session? Surely that wouldn’t help her find out. After all, they weren’t allowed to ask about personal feelings and things, that Master Fu person wouldn’t be able to tell her if she was straight or not. Clearly there was something much more interesting going on here.

 

That evening Max was helping out Kim with his homework again, as always. The work was so easy that he had already finished it himself and yet poor Kim was still struggling. It was clear he had never really bothered studying before in his life, and especially not matters to do with royal courts and how to run them. What kind of ruler would he end up making once he finally ascended the throne?

In any case, for once Max was not in the mood for studying either. He knew he should keep his mouth shut for now and let Kim finish his work in peace, but recently he had just been noticing certain things, making observations, creating hypotheses, coming to conclusions – he had to know if he was right!

“Kim,” he said, unable to wait any longer, “can I ask you something?”

Kim looked up from his work. “Please do, I can’t take this any longer. Matrilineal, patrilineal, primogeniture, gavelkind, I don’t even know or care about any of this stuff. Talk to me about literally anything else.”

“Do you have a crush on Alix?”

“I changed my mind – talk to me about literally anything, _except that_.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Kim sighed and put his face on the desk. “Don’t tell her.”

“Of course I won’t. I know she’s not going to the ball, but are you planning to ask her out properly?”

“I don’t think so, I mean it’s just a crush… she’s my friend… I don’t want to make it weird…”

Max almost burst into laughter at how strangely relatable that was. Having a hopeless crush on a friend but not wanting to do anything about it? Oh yes, he certainly knew what that was like! He had felt like that about a certain someone for quite a while now.

Looking at Kim pitifully resting his head on the desk, being so endearing… Max could already feel the butterflies in his stomach. All he wanted was for Kim to be happy, and he would do everything he could for that. Even if it meant setting Kim up with someone else. Well, someone who was not Chloé this time.

“I think you might have a chance with her,” Max said. “If you ever decide you want to go for it then I’ll help you.”

“Wait, really?” Kim lifted his head off the table. “But like, remember what happened with Chloé!”

“Alix wouldn’t treat you like that, she’s your friend. Even if she rejects you she would be decent about it.”

“You really think I should try?”

“It’s up to you. I’ll support you whatever you do.”

Kim gave him a friendly punch in the arm. “Max, you’re the best. I don’t know if I’ll do it or not, but… You’re right. Maybe I have a shot.” He looked back at his work. “Seriously though, what’s primogeniture? I don’t understand what a single one of these words mean.”

Max grinned and began to help Kim out with the homework. He felt a little better now that he knew his guess had been correct.

Well… and a little worse, too. Why couldn’t he follow his own advice? Just take a chance and know that his friend wouldn’t treat him badly just for trying?

He knew the reason. Everything was different for him. At least Kim’s crush was on a girl, so whether or not things went to plan at least no one would have a worse opinion of him because of it. Max, on the other hand, could not afford to take any chances. He knew perfectly well that other kingdoms were not as accepting as places like Kanté or Kubdel. There was no way he could let his international reputation suffer. His country was depending on him, and he couldn’t let it down.

And it had to be Alix, didn’t it? The leader of the only country in the world that had a higher standard of living than Kanté. It wasn’t that it was unfair as such, it was just… annoying. He had always wanted to be the leader of a country like that. He was good at science, mathematics, technology, all the things a ruler needed to be able to propel their country to the top of every international rankings table. He would absolutely excel at it! Unlike Alix, who was so apathetic about things like that…

He couldn’t help wishing that their places were swapped. But then again, that was a rather selfish thing to think. Alix was a good friend of his, and it wasn’t like her life or her kingdom were free of problems either. Letting selfishness overcome him was not going to solve anything. No, he should be happy and proud of both his best friends and just concentrate on trying to do the best for his own kingdom. He could find someone else like Kim, in his own time, and he could use his knowledge to improve his country and make the world a better place. And being there for his friends and studying hard was a good start.


	9. Alya's gaydar

Princess Alya, heir to the throne of the Césaire Kingdom, had always prided herself on how observant she was. If anyone had a secret, she would always be sure to figure it out. She always had to be the first to know about things. It was just that hunger inside her for knowledge, for truth, always looking for more things to discover! Her family had told her that her skills would make her an excellent spy network leader later on in life, but little did they know she already was one.

Reports were constantly being flown in from home by a trail of messenger pigeons, letting her know everything that was going on that she hadn’t been explicitly told. Hmm, spymaster Theo had just taken up yet another “job”, this time in the household of Lord Cataldi. Hopefully the intel from him would let her know what that untrustworthy noble was up to now, and whether or not he was plotting against her family like she suspected. She would definitely have to keep an eye on that.

Alya had even started up her own network within the school itself. There were a few nobles from her own kingdom here so she had already recruited them, and even found some bright and upcoming spies from other countries who she could bring to her side after gaining their trust. This way she would be able to find out everything that was going on.

Her favourite spy in her confidence had to be Marchesa Lila. That girl would do anything to get into the good books of members of royalty, including telling some of the most convincing and intricate lies Alya had ever heard. With a girl like that under her wing, she had the power to strike her influence everywhere!

Well, almost everywhere. Alya had a new challenge now, and the nobility would not be able to help her this time. She would have to rely on her own observational skills to figure out the thing she was just burning to know – who was the other girl in her class who liked girls?

Really, it could be anyone. Such things were often impossible to tell from the outside. After all, Alya herself had managed to keep her own preferences mostly hidden from the outside world for now, although she waited for the day when she would ascend the throne and then be able to freely show who she really was without anyone being able to say anything about it.

But then again, Alix had said that the girl was “not that subtle about it”. In that case some snooping around should be able to solve the mystery. Especially since someone as oblivious as Alix considered it unsubtle, since she hadn’t even managed to notice how obviously head over heels Kim was for her – and Alya certainly wasn’t going to interfere there!

Of course there was always the possibility that Alix had been lying about all this. But why would she? She had shown herself to be nothing but truthful so far, even rather tactlessly saying whatever was on her mind at moments where keeping quiet would have been wiser. No, she was not lying. And statistically speaking, she was right. There had to be other girls in the class who were not straight. There just had to be.

So… who was it? In the days leading up to the ball, Alya used the time during lessons to pay close attention to her fellow lady classmates, and the time during breaks to converse with them and try to figure out which way they “swing”, so to speak.

She realized fairly quickly it was not her friend Marinette. No, if Marinette liked girls then she was clearly keeping that hidden, since there were no signs of it whatsoever. If anything, Marinette seemed to be leaning towards Prince Nino as an object of her affections, often gushing about how lovely he was and how excited she was to be his partner for the ball. She definitely could not have been the one who asked out Alix. Anyway, she told Alya everything. If that was the case then Alya would already know.

What about Chloé? Alya had suspected from day one that Chloé might not be as straight as she seemed. But the stuck-up imperial princess had been expecting the whole time that she would be going to the ball with Adrien, so would she have asked out anyone else in the meantime? There was no chance.

How about Sabrina? No, it was unlikely. The only person she ever associated with was Chloé, in a rather strange mix of loyalty and fear. If she was into girls then there was nothing “not that subtle” about it, since Alya did not notice anything about her that suggested it at all.

Mylène was easy to rule out. Everyone could clearly see her interest in Ivan, and indeed those two were going to the ball with each other. Any love for other girls that Mylène had was, quite obviously, purely platonic.

Rose… now there was a more likely suspect! Sweet Rose did tend to go overboard with expressions of love for her friend Juleka, often holding her hand, giving her hugs, all kinds of physically affectionate actions like that. Was she merely just very friendly for a royal, or was this something more?

Chatting with her during a horse ride through the surrounding countryside, however, led Alya to believe Rose really was just a very affectionate person in general. She went on and on about a servant boy from home who she was madly in love with and wished she could see again, some fellow named Ali (which, to be fair, was only one letter off). In that case Rose probably was not the one Alya was looking for.

Which just left Juleka.

Alya had barely even noticed Juleka before. She was princess of the mysterious distant country of Couffaine, always dressed all in black, and barely ever spoke above a whisper – if she even spoke at all. Alya certainly hadn’t noticed anything “not that subtle” about her despite having been here for over a month. But then again, that was because Alya had never even paid any attention to her. No one had. Juleka went almost as unnoticed as the paint on the walls.

But now… Alya could see it. Tiny lovestruck glances at Rose out of the corner of her eye when she thought no one was looking. Small hidden smiles to herself whenever Rose said something particularly cute. The way her face would go pink whenever Rose called her “sweet” or “pretty” or “ _my Juleka_ ”. The way she would end up dreamily gazing at Rose when bored during class.

How had Alya not noticed it before? Was Juleka just that good at being almost invisible, simply fading into the background despite how much an appearance like hers should stand out? In any case, Alya understood now. Juleka really was not that subtle. It was just hard to notice when you weren’t specifically looking for it. And now that she was…

It was obvious! Juleka liked girls, and not just platonically! She had a huge, glaring crush on Rose. But then, why hadn’t she just asked Rose to the ball? Was she too nervous? If she was then Alya couldn’t fathom why she would go for someone as intimidating as Alix instead. It seemed like there was a new mystery to solve – and this time maybe direct action would be better.

Alya walked over to Juleka’s dorm room that evening and knocked on the door.

“Oh, Alya! Um, hi.” Juleka was still wearing a dress that looked uncomfortably tight around the waist, but her hair was fully down now. It was incredibly long and had purple streaks at the tips, something that wasn’t usually visible.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure…”

Juleka let Alya into her room and closed the door. Almost everything in here was black, with lace and velvet and skulls decorating everywhere. What kind of kingdom even was Couffaine? Was everyone there like this? Or was it just Juleka? This girl really was a mystery.

“So,” Alya said immediately, “have you got a date for the dance?”

“No.”

“I think you should ask Rose.”

Juleka blushed and looked at the ground. “You mean… like as a friend?”

“If you want. But I meant as a date. A romantic date. You two make a good couple.”

“Oh… I mean…” Juleka ran a nervous hand through her hair. “Maybe, but… why do you say that?”

“I’ve seen how you look at her, it’s obvious you like her. And don’t worry, I’m not going to judge that. Actually I can relate.”

“Really?” Juleka’s face lit up. “Awesome… I mean, okay I like Rose, I never told anyone because what if I get deposed or something… Anyway, I don’t think Rose likes me like that so I guess I’ll just ask her as a friend then…”

“That’s a good start. You’ve totally got this, girl. And anyway, I hear that’s not the only time you’ve asked out a girl, is it?”

Juleka’s face suddenly switched straight to a death glare. “Who told you about that?”

“Relax, I figured it out myself. Kinda. Well, Alix said some ‘chick’ asked her out and when I asked about that she said she won’t tell me who but that it’s someone from our class, and I figured it out from there!”

“Oh, right…” Juleka’s face had gone back to neutral. Thank goodness, since a glare with those red eyes was far from pleasant. “Um, yeah. I just think venomous animals are cool so I asked her if I could see her snake, and she was telling me about it, and then I suddenly freaked out and asked her to the ball. But she said she’s not going and not to take it personally.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t seem like she’s the kind of person to be interested in posh fancy balls. So anyway, you’ll ask out Rose?”

“Platonically,” Juleka said, nodding.

“Nice. I hope it goes well for you. That was all I really wanted to talk to you about, so I’ll get going now, and rest assured your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you, Alya.”

“No problem! And uh… I’m sorry if I alarmed you by just barging in here and asking you about this. I know it’s personal and all, it’s just I’m really nosy and I really wanted to know, and anyway like I said I can relate, so…”

“I guess it was good to be able to tell someone,” Juleka admitted. “But yeah, maybe don’t do that to other people, it’s not something most people want to talk about…”

“You’re right, I’ll be more mindful of that in the future. But good luck with Rose anyway. I’ll see you soon!”

“Yeah, see you in class.”

Alya left the room and closed the door behind her.

Yes, perhaps she did overstep her boundaries a little sometimes. But how else was she supposed to be the greatest spymaster the world had ever seen? Knowledge was power, and in a kingdom like Césaire, no power meant you were going to get overthrown. She had to stay atop the pack. But perhaps she could find a way to go about it more considerately?

 

The night of the autumn ball soon arrived. Most people had decided to attend, wanting to see how a school ball would differ from the ones usually held at royal and noble courts. The only people here would be students, for a start, so despite being a formal affair it wouldn’t be too bad to accidentally get something wrong.

“You, uh, go on ahead,” Kim said to Max. “I’ll go and see if Alix changed her mind about going.”

“She won’t, but alright. Are you planning to tell her–”

“Nope. Not today. Not telling her anything.”

Max chuckled. “Alright. I’ll see you there.”

He headed off in one direction while Kim went in the other.

Kim arrived at Alix’s room and knocked on the door. She opened it and he saw that she was wearing some kind of pyjamas – okay, she definitely wasn’t going then.

“Hey Kim,” she said, yawning. “What’s up? Are you going to that lame ball thing?”

“Uh, yeah actually,” he said. “That’s why I’m wearing posh clothes…”

“Huh? Oh yeah. What are you doing here then?”

“I was just wondering, um, if you changed your mind? And you wanted to go after all?”

“No way. I’ve got better things to be doing with my time than going to some stupid ball. Like, you know, not going to the ball.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

“Seriously Kim, formal balls are boring. Have you been to one before?”

“Um, I’ve been to banquets, and…”

She shook her head. “Nope. Banquets are okay because you can just stuff your face with food. Balls are the _worst_. You’d hate it, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“It might be fun if you go with friends…” He had actually been talking about Max, but she didn’t realize.

“I told you, I’m not going. But if you get bored you’re welcome to come and hang out in here with me. I swear I’ll keep the snake in his enclosure.”

Hanging out with her… that might actually be more fun than the ball. “Can I just stay and hang out now?”

“Yeah, sure.”

She invited him in. He had only seen her room once or twice, preferring to spend time in Max’s room. Alix’s room was just too hot and stuffy. He knew she kept it like that to keep her snake more comfortable since that was what the climate was like back in her country, but still, how did she cope?

The snake was draped over the back of a chair but she picked it up and put it into a big enclosure that took up at least half the room. It was filled with sand and rocks and twigs and all sorts of other outdoorsy things.

“So what now?” Alix said, bypassing the chair entirely and sitting on the table instead. “I’ve got chess, Scrabble, Monopoly, darts, an actual fist fight could be fun since I’ve always wanted to try it…”

He hadn’t even heard of half of those, but anyway he had something else to ask about. It seemed like she was hiding something. “Alix, why do you hate formal balls so much? Are they really that boring?”

She sighed. “Well, they’re boring when you’re a pharaoh and you’re not allowed to do what you want because everyone’s watching you and you have to keep your country and your family’s reputation up.”

“But surely the whole point of being a pharaoh is that you can just do whatever you want and no one can stop you?”

“Nah, not really. I mean, I know I act like that all the time, but it’s really not true.” She crossed her arms. “I’m _never_ allowed to do what I want. Never have been, never will be. Listen… do you know what ‘HDI’ means?”

He had heard Max use that term before but never bothered to ask about it. “No.”

“It stands for ‘Human Development Index’. Basically it’s a measure of stuff like life expectancy, income, education, that kinda thing. It tells you how well your country’s doing. Kubdel has the highest HDI in the world and the commoners are pretty much free to do whatever they want. They’re guaranteed a long life, enough money to live on, freedom of speech, high standard of living and quality of life, you know what I mean.”

“Does it mean your country’s the best in the world?”

“No, there’s no way to judge something like that, it just means it’s one of the nicest places to live in. If you’re a commoner, that is. Because I’m the one who’s expected to run the whole place now, so if I make any wrong moves it’s going all downhill.”

“But you’re like, a teenager. Surely they can’t expect you to rule a country properly already.”

“Of course they don’t. I mean technically I could if I wanted to, but I’m just gonna let my dad essentially be regent for me until I’m like 18 at least. And anyway the elected council does the normal day-to-day running of the country, I don’t need to have a say unless I specifically want to. But I still have to do all the ceremonial stuff.”

“Ceremonial…?”

“Greeting ambassadors, attending meetings, wearing fancy uncomfortable clothes and going to stupid posh events all the time where I can’t do anything except stand there being bored, making stupid small talk with people I don’t care about, not even allowed to bring my snake with me for company, pretending to be just as boring and stuck-up as everyone else is…”

She tucked her feet up and rested her chin on her knees, making her look even tinier than usual.

“My country isn’t like most of the others, Kim. It’s right at the top and now it’ll be my responsibility to somehow keep it there. I can’t mess up even a little bit. And all my life I’ve been told that if I want to be a good ruler of the most developed country in the world then do this, do that, stop having fun, be more serious, put on a dress for once, whatever. Now that I’m an actual ruler I get told what to do even more, would you believe. It’s so stupid and annoying.”

“So is that why you don’t wanna go to the ball? Because I’m sure no one there will tell you what to do…”

“I know they won’t, but it’ll still remind me of all the stupid balls I have to attend back at home. And trust me, they are _always_ boring. If I ever have a chance not to go then I just won’t go. That’s one thing I love about being at this school – I really can do what I want now. I don’t have to worry that my dad’s gonna suddenly turn up and tell me off for being a reckless idiot or something.”

As if on cue, a tune started playing from her sceptre that was leaning against the wall in the corner of the room.

“Ugh, that’s probably him. Well I’m not answering it.”

“Why’s it playing music?” Kim asked. It had started lighting up too, like there was something blue glowing inside it.

“That’s just the ringtone.”

“The what?”

“You know… when the phone rings, it makes a noise so… Seriously, have you never made a phone call in your life? Every kingdom has at least a few telephones, I know that much!”

“Well I’ve never used a telephone!”

“Okay, some day I am definitely showing you how to use one.”

The sceptre stopped ringing after a few more bars.

“Oh good, I hope whoever it was doesn’t call back. It’s probably someone calling to tell me off and I’m not in the mood for that. Literally the only person back home who doesn’t just start scolding me on sight is my brother Jalil, and that’s because he’s almost as much of a failure as I am.”

“You’re not a failure!”

“Yeah, but I probably will be. You know me, don’t you? Do you honestly think my country will be okay with someone like me ruling it? I’ll certainly try my best and I don’t want to let anyone down, but I know perfectly well I’m not the kind of person who should be put in charge of a ridiculously prestigious kingdom… Inheritance is a mess, honestly…”

She laughed, but it didn’t sound particularly happy.

“I just want to make my family proud. I know I’ve kind of a been a temperamental brat my whole life, it’s probably so stressful on my dad. But I just hate having to do what I’m told! And how am I ever supposed to be even a slightly competent ruler if I can’t even be a competent daughter? Pfff, it’s gonna be a disaster and you know it.”

This was not what Kim had in mind when he said he wanted to hang out with Alix. He really did feel bad for her, hearing about her life problems and whatever pressure she was under, but how was he supposed to help? If there was anyone who was _more_ of a reckless idiot than her, it was him!

Still, he should say something…

“Even if it’s a disaster I’ll still be your friend,” he said quickly. “And so will Max, probably. He could help you run your kingdom in the future, couldn’t he? I mean I know you said that council thing can do it for you and the problem is the whole acting like a serious pharaoh and going to posh meetings and stuff but…”

“Wait, you were properly listening to all that?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Really? I thought you must have zoned out!” She grinned. “Well it’s nice to know you and Max will stick around even after I’ve inevitably been overthrown in utter disgrace for like, starting a food fight at a banquet for diplomats or something.”

“For the record, that would be awesome.”

“I’m glad you think so at least. If I told Jalil that idea he’d probably have a heart attack. But anyway I’m not actually gonna start a food fight, and you’re probably a bad influence on me for encouraging that sort of behaviour.”

“Good thing we’ve got Max to stop us, huh?”

“Yeah. And it’s a good thing Max has got us, that stick-in-the-mud needs some adventure in his life. Anyway, uh… Sorry for rambling a bit. I basically gave you a geography lesson, didn’t I? You might have had more fun at the ball actually.”

“I don’t know about that–”

“And thank you for listening. No one at home ever listens for that long, even Jalil’s usually too busy. It’s nice to have friends here.”

Kim was about to say something when he saw that she was holding her arms out open, an invite for a hug. Sitting up on the desk made her at least the same height as him.

He almost hesitated to go for it – over the past few minutes he had been so absorbed in what she was saying that he momentarily forgot how much he was crushing on her. But he suddenly remembered, as his pulse shot up so fast it was like he’d had too many cups of coffee in a row, oh yes he remembered now alright…

Trying to ignore that, he leaned forwards and gave her a quick hug. She really was tiny, wasn’t she? Much tinier than Max, and even he was tiny compared with Kim. In any case, despite not really wanting to let go, Kim did indeed let go rather quickly. He could feel his face starting to heat up and if that was happening it probably meant he was about to start blushing, and she might notice, and might figure it out, and…

“I think I’ll go find Max now,” he mumbled.

“Cool, have fun,” she said. “If you even can have fun at something as boring as a ball, anyway.”

“Yeah. I’ll try.”

He quickly headed out of the room and then sank down against the wall, trying to calm his racing heart. Having a crush on a friend was definitely not as fun as the troubadours always made it sound. What was he even supposed to do about it? It was making everything weird!

Was a friendship hug supposed to last longer than that? He had no idea, since his brain at that moment had been running on something other than friendship. Did he make it too short? Did that mean she thought he didn’t want to hug her? Would it have been creepy if he’d hugged her for longer, considering she didn’t know he thought she was kinda hot? Ugh, this was so confusing!

He stood up and took a long, deep breath. Right. Time to go find Max. And maybe to tell him that Kim really wasn’t in the mood for being at the ball anymore, and that maybe he’d just go back to his room for now and get an early night. Athletes needed their sleep, after all.


	10. Oracle sessions

Not too much happened over the first few days of November. The temperature in this part of the Bourgeois Empire was starting to cool down a bit, leading to the leaves on the trees turning some interesting colours, but it wasn’t too much of a difference to get used to. Many of the students were from kingdoms that were much colder at this time of year, so for them it was almost laughable when students from more tropical areas complained about the cold.

Kim was already getting sick of receiving letters from his family constantly reminding him not to talk to Adrien, which he consistently ignored, but now they had gone one step further. It turned out that the school had sent lists out to each parent letting them know what activities and clubs their child was participating in, along with the member lists. His parents had not been happy when they found out the truth.

_There is nothing exactly wrong with attending duelling club, if you so wish, however, knowing who else is in attendance, it would be prudent to remove yourself immediately. We have already told you not to associate yourself with Adrien so please do as we say and join other clubs instead._

No. There was no way he was doing that. Adrien was his friend, duelling club was fun, and his parents couldn’t tell him what to do. Simple.

This time he lit a candle in his room and held the piece of paper to the end of it, slowly burning it into ash. Of course, it was against the rules to light candles in your room, but no one would find out, would they? It was fine.

 

Imperial Prince Adrien was facing a somewhat similar dilemma himself. He had been called into Duke Damocles’s office, high up at the top of one of the towers, since his father had called the school’s telephone and demanded to speak to his son.

“I forbid you from attending duelling club from now on,” Emperor Gabriel said, his voice sounding crackly through the receiver.

“But father, why?” Adrien asked, clutching the receiver tightly to the side of his face. “I love duelling, I’m learning so much.”

“There are _nobles_ at that club, Adrien. I will not have you in the presence of the nobility for any longer than you have to be. I will arrange for you to be privately tutored in fencing instead.”

“Father, please, no! I have friends there! Royalty, I mean, not the nobles!”

“You can talk to your royal friends at other times surely. I’m just trying to do what’s best for you.”

“Please let me stay at duelling club! I promise I won’t speak to any of the nobles. I won’t duel against them. I won’t even look at them.”

“Do you really intend to keep that promise, though? You had assured me you were not going to attend the autumn ball, and yet I hear from your bodyguard that you did. I cannot keep you from going to the mandatory winter party in a month, but I must be able to know that you will keep your word.”

“I’m sorry for disobeying you about the ball,” Adrien said. “I was asked by a classmate to go with her and I didn’t want to say no, so…”

“That is no excuse.”

Adrien sighed. “I know. But I really will keep my promise about duelling club. No associating with the nobles whatsoever. Just let me stay at the club. Please. I’ll do absolutely anything else, just… let me keep a little freedom.”

There was a long silence. Adrien wondered if he had gone too far, since he didn’t usually stand up to his father like this. If you could call this “standing up”, anyway.

Finally he heard Gabriel’s voice again. “Fine. But I will be corresponding with the duelling instructor to make sure that you keep your word, and if I find out that you haven’t then I will have you removed immediately. Is that clear?”

“Yes, yes, it’s clear – oh, thank you father! Thank you so much!”

“You are welcome Adrien. Behave yourself. I will have to go now.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

Adrien put the receiver down and breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that his father calling to talk to him did not bode well, but at least it had turned out alright. This wasn’t so bad. He didn’t speak much to the nobles at duelling club anyway. All he had to do was make sure his duelling partner was Kim every time, and there we go! He wouldn’t need to talk to the nobles at all.

Still, he wished his father wouldn’t interfere in his life so much. Would he ever get the freedom he wanted, the freedom that everyone else seemed to have, without having to wait for his father to die and leave him the throne?

Hmm… perhaps that was something he could ask the oracle at his oracle session in a few days. Who was it again? Someone called Master Fu, a seer of some sort. Yes, Adrien needed to think of a good enough question about his future, and perhaps something to do with his freedom might be a good choice…

 

Max sat in the library, trying to concentrate on his work. Being at this school was such an excellent opportunity for learning, and he was eager to take advantage of it. But he seemed to be the only one! Did no one else care about learning the best way to run their kingdoms? Did no one else think it was fascinating to research all these unique cultures? Did everyone – especially Kim and Alix, who just would not shut up – really think _arm wrestles_ were more worth their time?

“Yes, I win again! I swear you’re getting weaker every time, what’s up with that?”

“What, I’ve just had like… less sleep and stuff! I want a rematch!”

“This is the fifth time, you’re just gonna lose again!”

“Don’t tell me you’re too scared to try again…”

Max stuck his fingers in his ears to block them out. He knew perfectly well the only reason Kim was challenging Alix to an absurd number of arm wrestles, compared with other stupid challenges those idiots could be getting up to, was the opportunity to hold her hand without having to admit he wanted to. But the library was not the place for it!

Sighing, Max turned back to his shortlist of possible questions to ask Master Fu at the oracle sessions. There was one he was just itching to ask, but… no. He couldn’t ask that! His reasons for wanting to were selfish, jealous, ridiculous, stupid – there was no way he was asking that. He drew a line through it, then for good measure, drew several more lines over it. Then scribbled it out so hard that the pen went right through the paper and onto the desk itself. Whoops.

So what could he ask? Well, there was the thing he wanted to ask second most. Perhaps it was still somewhat selfish, jealous, ridiculous, stupid… but it was a bit better at least. And it was about his kingdom. Yes, asking a question like that might be a lot better. Hopefully he would get the answer he wanted.

Had Kim and Alix thought about their questions yet? Max didn’t really want to ask. The questions were supposed to be private, most of the time people did not want to share them. Max certainly didn’t want to share his. (And especially not the one he had scribbled out…) But he still couldn’t help but wonder what sort of things his friends wanted to find out. Would they ask about their lifespan? Their kingdom? Money? Would they like the answers they got? Maybe he would never find out.

 

A few days later, the royal class were led into a waiting room from which they would one by one be allowed into Master Fu’s room to have their yearly oracle session with him. Most people were at least a little nervous. Kim, however, was extremely nervous. He had entirely forgotten to think of a question, always putting it off for later, and now the only thing coming to mind was to ask how long he was going to live – and knowing him, he was probably going to end up dying very young indeed!

He sat there beside Max and Alix, twiddling his thumbs, impatient. Marinette had come out looking rather pleased, Adrien had been so happy after his session that he whooped cheerfully and hugged Nino, Chloé had been upset enough to push Sabrina aside and leave in a huff…

Soon enough it was Max’s turn to go in.

“Wish me luck,” he said, then walked through the door that Lady Caline was holding open for him. Kim knew he wouldn’t have to wait long, since most of these sessions only took a few minutes. It could hardly take longer than that for some old guy to answer a question, after all.

 

Max walked into the room to see that Master Fu, a short old man with a tiny beard, was sitting on the floor with a large green turtle placed in front of him.

“Welcome, Max, have a seat.”

Max went and sat down on the mat placed across from the turtle. This room… it seemed to have a calming sort of aura. Calming? No, that wasn’t quite it. It was just quiet and stuffy, like the feeling of having eaten too much and wanting to go to sleep.

“So, what is your question?”

This was his chance to find out anything. He really could ask that question, the one he had scribbled out. But then again, they had been told not to ask Fu questions about personal feelings… Was it personal enough not to count? And the questions had to be about themselves, not about other people. But it could be to do with other people a little bit, couldn’t it?

Never mind. He had already made up his mind not to ask that. Time for the more sensible question.

“My question is: will the GDP of my kingdom exceed that of the Kubdel Kingdom within my lifetime?”

GDP stood for Gross Domestic Product, obviously. A way to measure the goods and services that a country produced in a year. In short, how well it was doing economically. It was exactly the kind of thing Max was good at, and he already had all kinds of plans he wanted to put into action to improve things once he was on the throne. The only country ahead of Kanté in that respect was Kubdel, and surely he could overtake it. He just wanted to be sure.

Master Fu closed his eyes and placed his hands on the shell of the turtle for a few seconds, then opened them again.

“I have an answer. Are you certain you want to hear it?”

“Yes.”

“In that case the answer is no.”

It took a few seconds to sink in. “Wait… no? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Your country’s GDP is not going to overtake your friend’s within your lifetime.”

No… how could that be possible? It couldn’t be true! He had been so sure! After all, he was good at economics. Good at trade and production, mathematics, general politics, sciences, _every_ subject he would need to make the most competent leader the world had ever seen! He had worked hard for it! And all Alix ever did was _mess around, she didn’t deserve a kingdom like that_ –

He took a deep breath and stood up. “Am I allowed to leave now?” His voice sounded harsher than he had intended it to.

“Yes. Would you like a complimentary mint on your way out?” Master Fu held up a bowl from beside him, filled to the brim with mints.

“No thank you.”

Max stormed out of the room, seething, _knowing_ he shouldn’t be so upset, but he just couldn’t help it. How did he possibly deserve this? He always worked so hard all the time! He did all his homework, he did extra research, he absolutely thrived when it came to mock governmental scenarios, he knew exactly how to split the budget, everything! There was no way he could get beaten out by some tiny careless punk who had everything handed to her on a silver platter!

“How did it go?” Kim asked as Max entered the waiting room, while Alix was sent in next for her session.

“It could have been better, Kim. It could have been a lot better. I’m going to do some homework now, excuse me.”

He walked off quickly.

 

“Welcome Alix, have a seat.”

“Whoa, is that turtle alive?” Alix said as she sat down. “Can I touch it?”

“Yes, he’s alive. His name is Wayzz. You can stroke his shell if you want.”

“Neat!” She gave Wayzz a quick stroke. “I have a reptile myself, actually, a–”

“A cobra, I know. The teachers keep telling me how terrified it makes them when you bring your snake to class.”

“Wait, they’re scared of him?”

“Very much,” Master Fu said, chuckling a little. “Anyway, what is your question?”

Oh yes, her question. There had definitely been something she had wanted to know over the past few years, though she guessed it counted as personal feelings, which she knew she wasn’t allowed to ask about. But she had managed to come up with a pretty objective way of asking about it. Hopefully it would be objective enough.

“Okay, so… it’s a bit weird, but… is there going to be a succession crisis after my rule?”

Master Fu put his hands on Wayzz’s shell to channel his energy, then replied, “Ah I see… I can guess why you asked that.”

“Really?”

“To tell the truth I _do_ have the powers to answer questions about personal feelings. I just don’t because people usually ask questions that give them unhappy answers. And I can tell the question you asked me was just personal feelings in disguise.”

“But you can answer it, right?”

“Yes, I can.” He smiled. “Most people would be horrified to learn they will have a succession crisis after their rule. After all, the number one rule of monarchy is to provide an heir for the throne, isn’t it? But I can tell you will be very pleased indeed to know that yes, there will be a succession crisis in your kingdom after your rule.”

Oh, thank goodness. That was exactly the answer she had wanted to hear. That was… it was a _relief_. Such a relief suddenly, like the floodgates in her brain had opened, _yes_ , her life was going to be okay after all! It was going to be all hers, she didn’t have to compromise on anything she didn’t want to, she had always been so scared she would have to but now she knew she wouldn’t, she hadn’t even realized how much it worried her, how much it had been gnawing on her mind…

But it was okay now. Everything was going to be okay. Maybe she really could deal with being pharaoh after all now, knowing that things were going to turn out fine. A succession crisis meant no heirs. No heirs meant _no spouse_. And the thought of that made her so relieved she almost felt dizzy.

“Thank you so much,” she said, not even trying to hide the giant grin on her face. “You’re the coolest old dude ever and your turtle is awesome and I totally wish you were my grandpa.”

“I’m too old to be your grandpa, but you’re welcome.”

“Too old…?”

“I recently celebrated my 186th birthday.”

“Whoa, that is awesome!”

“Anyway, I’m glad you got the answer you wanted, and now it’s time to give someone else a turn to ask their question. Would you like a complimentary mint on your way out?”

“Ooh, yes please,” said Alix, grabbing a handful and stuffing them into her pocket. She was feeling so hyper all of a sudden, like she just couldn’t stay still. “Yeah, I should leave now, anyway thank you once again!”

 

Kim sat in the waiting room, wondering what could have gone wrong with Max’s question. What would Max have asked about, anyway? Something nerdy, no doubt. And what was Alix’s question? Hopefully she wouldn’t end up as downhearted with the answer as Max had been. At least Kim knew that there wasn’t a lot that could go wrong with a question like “how long will I live”, since he was already prepared for a nasty answer. Reckless, irresponsible people did not tend to live long. As long as he died doing something cool, he was surprisingly okay with that.

The sound of the door opening distracted him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw that Alix had finished her oracle session, and she was smiling more than he had ever even see her smile before. Clearly her session had gone a heck of a lot better than Max’s.

He stood up and waved at her. “Hey Alix, how was–”

He didn’t even get to finish before she ran over and hugged him, having to jump up to reach, leaving her feet dangling off the ground.

“It was so awesome! Oh my gosh, I’m so _happy_ , I got the answer I wanted and I didn’t even realize how much I wanted it! I’m so relieved! Life is just… life is just gonna be so good now!”

He tried to say something but his brain had just stopped working completely. Could she feel how fast his heart was beating? She was still hugging him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, wisps of her hair brushing against his ear, him having to hold her waist so she wouldn’t fall back down to the ground, she was just so small and cute…

Lady Caline cleared her throat. “Your turn, Kim.”

Alix quickly said, “I’ll tell you properly about it some other time, it’s too weird to explain right now but I swear I will – anyway, good luck!” She gave him an extra tight squeeze and then jumped down and ran off.

Wow… had that even been real? He had never seen her that happy or excited about anything. Plus, her usual way of expressing affection was to punch people in the arm. But she had hugged him again, this time so tight he was sure he could still feel it...

As if in a daze, he walked into Master Fu’s room and sat down on the mat. Nothing even registered in his brain until Fu asked, “So, what is your question?”

His mind was running blank. What was his question again? The only thing he could think about was Alix! Right, his question… something about… ugh, no, he just couldn’t remember. Maybe he would have to think of a new one, and fast. What did he want to know? What did he _want?_

Well, he knew what he wanted. He wanted another hug like that. And something else, too, his heart suddenly doing a somersault when he thought about it–

“Is Alix ever gonna kiss me?”

Fu blinked. “Is that your question?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Like, are you really, definitely, 100% sure that’s the important question you want to ask me, an oracle with limitless powers, who can tell you anything about what’s going to happen in the future?”

“Yep. That’s my question.”

Master Fu sighed and put his hands on his turtle for a few seconds, then held up the bowl of mints. “Would you like a complimentary mint?”

“Uh yeah, thanks,” Kim said, taking one. “So what’s the answer?”

“Listen, are you definitely sure you want to know? You can still ask me another question if you’ve changed your mind, I’d be happily willing to do that for you.”

“Nah, I wanna know.”

“Well, if you say so, I suppose I’ll have to tell you…” He put the bowl of mints down. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

Oh. So it wasn’t going to happen. He should have known.

“Never mind, thank you anyway.”

He stood up and headed towards the door. His hand was just on the handle when Fu said, “But I never said she won’t kiss you.”

“Wait, what?” Kim spun around to face him again. “So she will?”

“Yes.”

“But then… what did you mean about not getting my hopes up?”

“You’ll know when it happens.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Trust me, you’ll know.”

What the… don’t get your hopes up? But she was going to kiss him after all? What, did that mean it would just be CPR or something? Would he already be dead? Would she just be a bad kisser? _What did it mean?_

He left the room feeling rather confused.


	11. An honourable duel

Kim managed to track down Max in the library, hunched over a very thick book.

“Max, are you alright? I didn’t get to properly ask you earlier.”

Max looked up, slamming the book shut. “I’m alright as someone could ever be after finding out that all their hard work has been for nothing. And how are you?”

“Oh, uh… okay I guess? That was so weird, though, Master Fu gave me such a confusing answer. I mean I kinda forgot my question so instead I asked, well it’s pretty stupid but I maybe kinda asked him… well…”

“Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, my question was… whetherornotalixisevergonnakissme,” he mumbled.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I asked him if Alix is ever gonna kiss me… because she was being really adorable! Like she got a really good answer from her question, whatever it was, and she–”

“Kim, are you serious right now?”

“Yeah, I know it’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“Do you ever think about anything besides yourself?” Max snapped suddenly.

“What?”

“You could have asked about anything, Kim. You could have asked about something to do with your country, something that would actually help you, not just something stupid and selfish! Why do you never think about your country sometimes? What kind of impact you’re going to have on it? If you never consider your kingdom even once in your life then you’ll never make a good ruler! And it’s so unfair, since some of us have been working so hard all their life only to find out that it’s all worth nothing, it doesn’t even matter, we’ll never amount to anything! And that we’re just going to get beaten out by people who never even bothered trying!”

Wow – Kim had never seen Max like this before. It seemed like he was actually in a bad mood for once. In any case, Kim could guess that Max’s question must have had something to do with how well his country would do compared to others, and he didn’t get the answer he wanted. No wonder he was so upset.

And he was _right_. Kim knew his own question had been stupid the second he asked it. Was he being selfish by not asking about his country instead?

“I’m sorry, Max,” he said. “I’ll, uh… it looks like you’re busy with work so I’ll just catch you later…” He quickly backed away and out of the library. Probably best to let Max cool down for a while.

Pacing down the corridors, Kim wondered what to do. How to stop being selfish? How to be a good prince for his kingdom? Usually he would just ask Max, but that wasn’t an option now. He had to do this himself. Anyway, he wouldn’t always be able to rely on other people to help him. It was time to start taking things seriously and stop being such an idiot for once.

His parents’ letters suddenly came to mind. They had told him to stop talking to Adrien, because of the Agreste Empire taking their land. Perhaps he should actually listen to them. That would be a good start.

But… no, he just couldn’t. Adrien was his friend! Surely there had to be some other way to make his parents happy without cutting off Adrien entirely?

Ah yes. He had an idea.

 

“Imperial Prince Adrien!”

Adrien, in the middle of talking to Nino, turned around to see Kim walking into the square straight towards him.

“Hi Kim, what’s up?” he asked. “How did your oracle session go?”

Kim stopped several metres away and suddenly unsheathed a sword. Not his usual fencing sword, but an actual military sword. He pointed it directly at Adrien.

“I challenge you to a duel!”

What? An actual duel? Surely this must be just some kind of joke. “But why? And can’t we just use our fencing swords?”

“No, this is a proper duel. If I win then you have to promise that when you’re emperor you’ll return the land your empire stole from Lê Chiến!”

“Wait, what? I didn’t know about this – Kim, I don’t want to fight, can’t we talk it out or something–”

“Don’t tell me you’re too much of a coward to take me on! At least I’m trying to be a good prince by upholding my family’s honour, and clearly I’m doing a way better job than you are! Now fight me!”

Adrien took a step back, shaking his head. He didn’t want to fight Kim, and even if he did, word would get out to his father about it and he’d be in so much trouble. Where was that bodyguard of his anyway? Wasn’t he supposed to be preventing things like this?

“Kim, listen – I really don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. I can’t accept a duel without understanding all the details. Please, can you just tell me what’s going on?”

“Your country stole land from mine. I want you to give it back.”

Oh, right. Of course. His father’s stupid empire had caused yet another problem that it would be on him to fix.

“I see,” he said. “My empire has done a lot of terrible, regrettable things, I know that. And I’m not excusing it. You’re right, we probably did take land from you, and it would have been unlawful and unfair. But… I can’t accept your duel. It’s just not as simple as that. Giving back old land, it’s… I can always _try_ , but I can’t make any promises.”

Kim lowered his sword a little. “Why not?”

“Running an empire is so much more complicated than that, and things are easier said than done. There would be people in my court opposing me and blocking my decisions every step of the way, accusing me of giving land away to friends, there would be people living in the occupied zone that have grown up being part of Agreste and don’t want to switch countries, there’s the whole logistics of land transfer, just so many things to organize and take care of! The situation is so complex and I can’t do anything now! I _want_ to do the right thing, and I promise I’ll _try_ to be as good and ethical as possible and right my empire’s wrongs, since I know Agreste leaders have been cruel colonials in the past and I want to change it, but it’s so hard to do it without causing unneeded strife.”

Kim sighed and put his sword away. “Yeah… you’re right…”

“I’m sorry I can’t do more to help you right now, Kim. But I really don’t want to fight you. You’re my friend and I want to do what I can to help.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry for challenging you. I just wasn’t thinking properly, I was being a reckless idiot like usual…”

“You’re not an idiot, Kim! You just have a lot of spirit!”

“But I’m a bad prince! And you’re clearly so good at being a prince, knowing everything about all this politics stuff, I’m not doubting you’re gonna be an awesome ruler someday and make everything in your empire okay again. But like…” He half turned away. “I don’t really know what to do. My parents told me not to talk to you anymore. And I don’t want to listen to them, because you’re my friend and I like talking to you! But I also want to be a good prince and make my family proud…”

So that was what this was all about. The age-old dilemma of sacrificing freedom for duty. Adrien walked right up to Kim and put a hand on his shoulder.

“I understand, Kim. Thank you for telling me. Being a prince is always difficult, isn’t it? But let me tell you this – there’s no one right way to be a prince. You don’t have to be exactly who everyone else tells you to be, you can still be yourself and find your own way to do things right. I believe in you, Kim! I know you’re a good prince somewhere deep inside. You’ll figure it out someday. And in the meantime I’ll always be here for you if you need it.”

He was suddenly wrapped into a hug so tight he was sure his ribs had cracked.

“Thanks, Adrien,” Kim said. “You’re the best.”

“It’s no problem,” Adrien managed to squeak out. “But, um, I can’t really breathe…”

“Oh, sorry!” Kim quickly let go. “Anyway yeah, it was probably a good thing you didn’t fight me, that would have been weird. I’m just… I don’t know. Inadequate. I need to get better at stuff… I think I’m gonna go for a run, go clear my head…”

“Sounds like a good idea. I’ll see you at duelling club later, right?”

“Yeah, see you.”

Kim walked away. Adrien turned around and went back over to Nino.

“That was wild,” Nino muttered. “And Marinette and Alya are over there, they saw the whole thing!”

Adrien looked to the corner of the square to see Marinette and Alya standing there, watching. He gave them a quick wave. Alya waved back immediately, but Marinette was completely red in the face and stared for a few seconds before suddenly grinning rather awkwardly and waving too fast to be normal. Huh, what was up with her all of a sudden?

 

Back in his room later, Kim was woken from a quick nap to the sound of someone knocking on his door. He opened it to see Max standing there, looking sheepish.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier, you caught me in a bad mood and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you,” Max said quickly.

“Oh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it! You were right, anyway, I totally need to work harder on being a good prince for my country. Like, I totally just went and challenged Adrien to a duel because my parents hate him–”

“ _What?_ ”

“But it’s okay, he refused! And he explained why that was a bad idea and I get it now, it’s okay. But I still want to be a good prince and stop being selfish, like you said.”

“You’re not really that selfish,” Max said. “Everyone’s a little selfish sometimes. In fact, my question was kind of selfish too. I asked Fu if my country’s economy will do better than Alix’s in my lifetime, and he said no. And I was upset because I thought it was unfair, since I try so hard and everything and she doesn’t, but I realize now that might have been short-sighted of me. I should be happy for Alix that her country will do so well. She’s my friend and she deserves it. And anyway, I’m sure she tries hard too, even if she acts like she doesn’t.”

“But at least you asked about your country, not just yourself.”

“I did want to ask about myself. I originally wanted to ask something, which, er… I don’t exactly want to talk about it, but it was actually rather similar to your question. I was very tempted.”

“Whoa, really? Max! I had no idea you were crushing on someone!”

“It’s not a big deal!” Max hoped Kim was not good at reading body language, since he was sure he was not doing a good job at hiding it. “Anyway, speaking of crushes, I have found out something that might be of use to you about the winter party. Which is a terrible name for that party considering that astronomically speaking, it doesn’t take place in winter, but in late autumn–”

“Seasons are a social construct, Max. Time is an illusion.”

Max chuckled. “I taught you that such a long time ago, I’m so glad you remember! Anyway, I’m not sure if you remember or not that the winter party is an informal event, though attendance is mandatory at least for a while, in order to get royals and nobles used to interacting like they would have to do in court situations one day. But the most important thing I have found out, and something that pertains to the question you asked Master Fu, is that there is always mistletoe.”

“Mistletoe? That plant stuff that people kiss under? Nice!”

“Yes, I don’t know what answer Master Fu gave you, but that might be helpful if his answer was yes.”

“His answer was _weird_. First he told me not to get my hopes up, but then he said yes. Like, what does that mean?”

Max shrugged. “I have no idea. But maybe you’ll find out when you try.”

“Yeah, I totally will try. Thanks. Oh, and Max! Before I forget! There was something I wanted to ask you. It’s just that I want to be a better prince but I’m not really good at school work and stuff, so… is it okay if you tutor me? You don’t have to but I promise I’ll try hard.”

“Yes, of course I’ll tutor you! I’m proud that you’re going to start making a difference!”

“I’m gonna be super smart, just like you are!”

“Oh, well… I’m not super smart, I’m just… Alright, yes, I’m super smart, I can’t deny that.”

Kim laughed and ruffled Max’s springy hair. “You are my super smart best friend and I’m so glad to have you around.”

“You too, Kim.”


	12. Rocket ships

Max had wondered how easy it would be to tutor someone like Kim, but he needn’t have worried. For all his faults, one thing could always be said about Kim – he tried hard! Once he had set his mind to something, there was no stopping that boy. Now that he wanted to get better at school work for once, he was already improving in leaps and bounds, and Max couldn’t help but be incredibly proud of his best friend.

Kim was needing a lot less help with homework now too. He would at least attempt the questions on his own, sometimes referring to books in the library to help him out, and only if he was still stuck then he would ask Max for help. He really was being so considerate. It was so sweet! How could Chloé resist the charms of a guy like that? How could Alix too, for that matter? Kim was _amazing!_ There was always something new to love about him!

“I’m an idiot,” was something Kim said a lot. It was true, Max had to admit. Kim really didn’t think anything through, he was always making rash decisions and getting into more trouble than he was supposed to.

“But you’re a _lovable_ idiot,” was Max’s go-to reply. That was what mattered. Kim tried hard, he was a sweet person, he knew his faults and tried to fix them, there was just always something to love about him! And Max certainly loved him. He loved him a lot. Kim knew that.

Or at least… Kim knew _part_ of that. Max had never told him the full extent of his feelings. How could he? It wasn’t like he would ever be able to act on them. Sure, even among the royals arranged marriages were rare these days, with people preferring to marry for love. Sure, even marrying commoners or people outside rank was not as frowned upon as it had been in the past. Sure, Kanté was a fairly tolerant kingdom, with more kinds of marriage legal than in many other parts of the world!

But still. Max was a prince, and so was Kim. Even if Kim did somehow miraculously love him back in the way he meant, what could they do? Would one or both of them have to abdicate? There was no way Max was going to, not when he was so looking forward to running the country with competence, and there was no way Kim would either, just considering the kind of person he was in general. Anyway, Kim didn’t even love him as anything other than a friend. No, there was no chance. It was time to move on.

Okay, so Max had been telling himself that for months already. Time to move on. But it was so much easier said than done! How could he just completely change the way he felt about someone? Why couldn’t love just be _logical_ , like the sciences or mathematics? Why did it have to be the one thing that Max just couldn’t figure out, no matter how hard he tried?

“Ugh, I am so not looking forward to the winter holidays,” Kim said, pulling Max away from his thoughts. They were working quietly in the library again, and for once it seemed like Kim had actually finished his work faster than Max.

“Why not? Don’t you want a break?”

“Well yeah, but I’m gonna have to go back home and talk to my parents. They’re just gonna tell me off for getting a detention and they’ll keep asking me about duelling club and Adrien and I don’t know what to tell them, I just wish I could stay here over the holidays instead and talk to them some other time…”

“Why don’t you come and stay with me in my kingdom for the holidays?” Max asked, somewhat surprising himself at how much confidence he said it with. “You always said you wanted to visit Kanté and see all the tech. Speaking of tech, Alix’s kingdom is right next door and she does like to visit a lot with trade shipments, so you’d probably get to see her too once or twice.”

“You’d let me stay in your kingdom for the whole holiday?”

“Yes, of course! You’d be an honoured guest.”

“Max, that’s… that’s really nice of you! Thanks! I’d love to!”

Max smiled and looked down at his work, hoping he wasn’t blushing. Not that he blushed easily, since there was so much melanin in his skin it made blushing quite unnoticeable. But still, he could _feel_ his face warming up…

“It’s totally unfair, though,” Kim continued. “You and Alix get all the cool tech from your kingdoms and no one else does. Why not?”

“Trade restrictions, Kim. Very luddite, I know.”

“Very what?”

“Many countries have historically been very isolationist and resistant to change, preferring to stubbornly stick to the old ways even when it hinders them. Keeping culture and tradition is one thing, and very important too, but refusing to implement things like vaccination schemes even in the face of epidemics? That’s just unreasonable.”

“Vaccinations… that’s like, polio and stuff, right? I think we’ve got that in Lê Chiến, or at least I remember getting needles stuck in my arm when I was a little kid. But what about the other cool stuff? Like plastic and wind turbines and all the other wonders of modern technology I keep hearing you and Alix talk about? I wanna know about those! Everyone does!”

“Everyone does? Hmm, perhaps I should do a class presentation after our next world kingdom study lesson. I’ll teach the whole class about all of this, I’m sure they’ll want to know.”

“That’s an awesome idea! I can’t wait!”

Max put his homework aside and started making a list of all the things to talk about to the class. Homework was all very well and good, but perhaps if he could convince these students to open up their borders to trade even a little bit by impressing them with tales of advanced technology, well, that would be making a real change in the world! Something like that was much more important than homework.

 

“I am sure many of you have horseless motor carriages in your kingdoms,” Max said, standing at the front of the class the next day as they all watched him intently. “More commonly known as cars, or automobiles. However, how many of you can honestly say that your kingdom produces enough cars at a low enough cost that it is commonplace for even fairly middle-class commoners to be able to afford them? How many of you can say that your kingdom’s cars look like _this?_ ”

He swiped a cloth off a mysterious object in front of him to reveal a projector on the table. Pressing a button on it, it projected an image of a very sleek, modern-looking car onto the plain wall behind it. Many of the classmates gasped and leaned forwards to get a better look, interested properly now.

“Yes, these are the kind of cars we have in my kingdom. They have heating, cooling, even a place which you can put in a cassette tape and play music. You could even tune into the local radio station while on the move, and adjust the volume!”

Pressing the button again, the next slide was a picture of a fuel pump. “Now, I know some of you may be wondering what these cars run on. It is diesel? Petrol? Well, some of them do. But recently we’ve been investing in cleaner types of fuel that don’t pollute the air so much, or that have been taken from renewable resources. And speaking of renewable resources…”

The next slide was a wind turbine, standing lonely atop a mountain. “We try to use renewable ways to produce electricity, too. I know all of you know at least a little about electricity. It’s used to power lightbulbs and streetlamps, after all. But there’s so much more to it than that! Have a look at this!”

He knew that most of the students weren’t entirely listening to the words he was saying, but all of them were now eagerly awaiting the next slide. Sure enough, pressing the button, a mysterious big box with a picture on it now appeared projected on the wall.

“Yes, that’s a television. A home device on which you can watch movies, programs specifically made for television, et cetera. I’ll admit they still have yet to catch on properly in my kingdom, but I can tell you that in Alix’s kingdom there’s barely a house left without a TV in it. And don’t think it means that cinemas are obsolete because don’t worry, they’re still thriving!”

Pressing the button for the next slide, he talked about 3D movies at the cinema. Colour movies. Then telephones. Then holograms, then proto-computers, colour cameras, plastic, ballpoint pens (much easier to use than the fiddly, smudgy fountain pens everyone else seemed to like so much…). The classmates became more and more enraptured with his every word.

“And now for something incredibly special,” he said, flicking to the next slide. “Yes. _The aeroplane_. I’m not just talking about simple gliders. I’m talking about jet aircrafts, the type that can carry passengers and cargo across entire continents in just a few hours. There are only a few countries in the world with airports, so somehow most people don’t even seem to know that aeroplanes do indeed exist and have done for decades already. The coolest part is: they can fly faster than the speed of sound!”

The effect was immediate. Even Chloé, who had been fiddling with her nails and trying not to look interested, had finally taken notice. Max knew most of these students would not have known that supersonic speeds were even possible. Yet they had indeed been achieved before, and they would again.

“And last but not least, the rocket engine.” Max changed the display to the final picture. “Though this hasn’t been achieved yet, rocket engines provide sufficiently high speeds that using them, we could send probes and satellites out of the planet’s atmosphere and into space itself. Real rockets are being built right as we speak. Who knows, within a few decades we might have humans in space too!”

Lady Caline herself was looking impressed now, standing at the back of the room and watching the presentation quietly. As for the rest of the classmates, it appeared that Max had done his job fantastically. Now to finish off and drive the point home.

“So, what can we learn from this presentation? We can learn that the policies our forbearers have implemented that restricts trade and sharing of knowledge between countries is outdated, and has no place in a world that is advancing as rapidly as ours. If we can begin changing things, lifting trade restrictions little by little, we can promote growth and prosperity everywhere, not just in the few kingdoms that are lucky enough to have tech like this. That isn’t to say that everywhere should end up exactly the same, devoid of individuality or culture, but that we should reach a respectful balance between keeping the heritage and pride of our countries, and adapting to the modern world to make life a more comfortable experience for everyone. Thank you all for listening, and I hope that was informative for you!”

The hearty applause and cheering from his classmates gave him hope that they had all learned some valuable lessons today, and that maybe the world would change in the future – even if just these 14 countries. It was a good start. He felt rather proud of himself as he packed up the projector, still basking in applause. Yes, maybe his country’s GDP wouldn’t overtake that of its neighbour. But if he had a _worldwide_ impact instead? That was much more worth celebrating!

 

With the winter party edging closer and closer, Alya confronted Marinette with some rather interesting plans.

“I know how you feel about Adrien,” she said, “and I’m not saying it’s impossible for him to love you back even though he is a higher rank. I’m just saying you’re going to have to stop being a stuttering dork around him all the time and actually speak to him!”

“But I can’t!” Marinette sighed. “I used to be fine at talking to him, but then when he deflected Kim’s duel challenge so honourably, and was being so nice and wonderful and kind and perfect…”

“Yes, yes, you fell in love with him on the spot and now you suddenly can’t say a word in front of him. Anyway, you and I both know there’s going to be mistletoe at the winter party, so you better drag that boy under there and ask for a kiss, alright?”

“What?!” Marinette’s face flushed pink. “I can’t just do that, Alya! He’s an imperial prince! And I can’t make him kiss me, what if he doesn’t want to? That wouldn’t be nice!”

“I’m not saying you have to make him do it, I’m just saying you should take him under the mistletoe and ask him for one. That way it’ll be clear your intentions are romantic, and if he likes you and says yes then you’ll get a kiss out of it. Where’s the downside?”

“The downside is if I mess up, or he doesn’t like me, or–”

“Don’t worry, Marinette! You’ll never know if you don’t try, and you’re a lovely person! Even if he doesn’t love you like that, I can guarantee he’ll still think you’re awesome. Because you are.”

“Aww, Alya! You’re awesome too!” Marinette hugged Alya tightly. “And I guess I’ll try talking to him at the winter party then… but no guarantees on the mistletoe!”

“That’s fair enough. Go for it, Marinette, you’ve got this!”

Somewhere not too far away, Nino and Adrien were having a surprisingly similar conversation.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at Marinette,” Adrien said, raising his eyebrows playfully.

“Alright, fine, I like her!” Nino replied. “She’s really cute and amazing all of a sudden! I don’t know if it’s because I went to the autumn ball with her or what, but…”

“You should talk to her at the winter party. In fact, I hear there’ll be mistletoe, so why don’t you ask her for a mistletoe kiss?”

“No, I can’t do that! That would be embarrassing! What if my breath smells bad, or there’s something in my teeth, or if she thinks I’m weird for asking her and doesn’t want to do it, or–”

“You may as well try!” Adrien laughed. “At least speak to her, won’t you? I’ll be hanging around nearby if you need my help. I promise.”

“Thanks, Adrien. You’re right, maybe I should try talking to her properly. One-on-one.”

“Nice. You can do it, Nino.”

Adrien held out his fist, and Nino gently fist-bumped it.


	13. Bi the way...

The winter party, being informal, was rather relaxed and cheerful. Nobles and royals mingled alike, chatting with each other regardless of rank and sharing food and drinks from the platters on the sides of the large hall. In the middle by the staircase, a very lively band was playing all sorts of very upbeat folk music from various different countries, and the dancefloor was filled with students happily joining in the fun with their friends.

Some humbugs who hadn’t wanted to attend this mandatory event were sitting on the seats provided along the edges, impatiently waiting for an hour to pass so that they were allowed to leave again and do what they wanted. Out of the royal class, only Prince Nathaniel was hoping to leave as soon as he could. Social events made him nervous and he much preferred to avoid them, thank you very much.

There was more than one sprig of mistletoe dotted at various places around the hall, mostly in dark, secluded corners, such a directly under the staircase or right in the very corner of the room behind a large row of stacks of chairs. Ivan and Mylène had already had a sweet mistletoe kiss, and now other members of their class were beginning their own romantic scheming.

“I’m hiding in this broom cupboard if you need me, alright?” Alya whispered to Marinette, before pushing her out into the room and then closing the door of her little hideaway, leaving only the tiniest sliver open out of which to spy.

Marinette gulped and wandered around a little – she had just seen Adrien somewhere around here, now where was he? Oh hang on, there was Nino, she should ask him.

“Hi Nino!” she said, smiling brightly up at him. “You look nice today! Blue is really your colour, you know that?”

“Uh… uh-huh…” Nino said, nodding, smiling rather awkwardly.

“Anyway, is Adrien here too? I mean, I know he must be since this is a mandatory event, but where is he? It would be nice to say hi to him too!”

“He’s, um, gone to get a drink!” Nino gabbled. It was not true. Adrien was hiding behind a pillar just a few metres away, watching like a hawk.

“Right, well, I suppose I’ll wait here for him to get back!”

“Haha… yeah… good idea…”

Without even a word being said, Nino could feel Adrien’s watchful eyes pressing into him, telling him to do something, make a move.

“Actually I wanted to talk to you about something!” he quickly said.

“Oh yes, of course, what is it?”

_Tell her you love her! Ask her for a mistletoe kiss!_

“There’s this girl I like and I don’t know how to tell her…”

Marinette squealed. “Oh my gosh, do you want my help or something? I could totally do that for you! Who is it?”

_It’s you!_

“It’s Alya!” Nino blurted out, then had to physically restrain himself from clapping his hand over his mouth. No, why had he said that? How hard would it have been to just tell Marinette the truth?

“Ahh, that’s amazing!” Marinette gushed, her beautiful blue eyes staring up at him filled with affection. “I’ll definitely help you with that! Do you want me to get her to kiss you under the mistletoe, since we’re here?”

“What? No, no, that’s fine! Nothing like that! I mean, I could just… uh… talk to her or something. Yeah, that would be better.”

“Yes, you’re right, maybe take it slow at first. Anyway, I know where she is, I can help you – follow me!”

Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed Nino’s hand and pulled him over to the broom cupboard.

“Alya, I’ve got a bae for you!” she called, flinging the door open and pushing Nino inside. Then she closed the door and quickly grabbed a nearby chair, jamming it under the handle. “I’ll leave you in there for 10 minutes, okay?” she yelled through the door. There were muffled replies and knocks on the door, but she paid them no heed.

Feeling rather pleased with her inventive matchmaking skills, she turned around to head off to get a drink, only to walk directly into Adrien.

“Good evening Marinette,” he said politely, bowing his head towards her slightly. “You look lovely.”

“Oh thanks Adrien! Y-you look lovely too! And lovesome – I mean h-handsome! You look... yeah, handsome and l-lovely!”

“Thank you. Anyway, I have to ask: is it my eyes playing tricks on me, or did I just see you lock Alya and Nino in that broom cupboard?”

Marinette giggled, fiddling with a strand of her hair. “Well I was just m-match… m-m-matching… m-m…”

“Matchmaking?”

“Yeah! That’s the word! And I promise I’ll let them out soon, I just…” It was starting to occur to her that locking two people in a cupboard together was probably not a very nice thing to do. Ah well, it was too late now, she had started already so she may as well go the whole way.

“Make sure you do let them out soon,” Adrien said. “It would be a little upsetting if they ran out of oxygen in there. I couldn’t _air_ to think of Nino suffocating!”

Marinette blinked, staring at him.

“Get it? Air? Because it rhymes with _bear?_ ”

“Oh yes! Um… good pun…”

“Anyway, since I don’t see anyone else around that I know, may I have the honour of dancing with you tonight, princess?”

He held out his hand. Trying not to shake, Marinette, wiped her sweaty palm on the side of her dress and then took his hand. Adrien gently led her to the dance floor and began dancing with her to a very lively jig that was being played. It was fun, though Marinette kept feeling like she was going to get something wrong and accidentally whack Adrien in the face. She couldn’t help wishing the band would play a slow song next… so that she could cuddle up to Adrien without suspicion…

 

Kim had chosen to wait underneath the mistletoe in the corner of the room, hidden behind the stacks of chairs, while Max had gone off to search for Alix. She had to be here somewhere, since this event was mandatory and all.

A noble girl suddenly appeared around this side of the chairs. It was hard to see much of her considering how devoid of light this little corner was, but she seemed to be very pretty, with long auburn hair and vivid green eyes. Kim quickly stepped out from under the mistletoe when he saw that she was waltzing right up towards him.

“Uh, sorry, I’m waiting for someone else,” he muttered, pointing up at the mistletoe that was now directly above her head, but a safe distance away from him.

“Oh, that’s fine,” she breathed, her voice smooth with just the tiniest hint of an Italian accent. “I didn’t even see the mistletoe there. I was simply exploring. In any case, I already have someone to be kissing under the mistletoe… a very beautiful, wealthy young man… I suppose I’ll go find him then…”

She walked off again, her hips moving in a way that made her long dress swish from side to side. Kim had been sure that she was hitting on him. Too bad she wasn’t his type, anyway. She did look familiar, though… Hadn’t he seen Alya chatting with her a few times, down in the square? Maybe they were friends, and that was why he recognized her. He had no idea what her name was, though, only that she was a noble, and seemingly a very wealthy one.

After waiting for a while longer, Alix finally turned up. To Kim’s delight, she went and stood right next to him – though it didn’t look like she’d noticed the mistletoe.

“Alright, Max dared me to stand over here for some reason, he said he’d give me a chocolate bar if I did,” she said. “I don’t know what he’s up to, but I would do anything for chocolate.”

Her voice sounded a little off for some reason, though he couldn’t quite place it.

“Oh, I’m sure he just has, like, a surplus of chocolate bars and he wants excuses to give them away,” he said. He looked up and pretended to sound surprised. “Huh, would you look at that? Some kind of plant stuff? We don’t have that in my kingdom…”

“Kim, that’s mistletoe, duh. It’s all over the place.” She had barely even glanced up at it.

“Well, in that case, I guess… I mean, I’m not saying we should kiss, but like… it’s tradition and everything, so like… only if you want to…”

She suddenly sneezed. Pulling a tissue out of her pocket, she wiped her nose, which was a lot more red than usual. Kim took a step backwards.

“Do you have a cold?” he asked her.

“Yeah. I don’t know who I caught it from but I’m gonna kill them.”

He took another few steps backwards. It was no wonder her voice sounded odd – her nose must have been blocked. “Okay. Don’t come near me. I mean okay I know there’s the mistletoe and so we should totally kiss and everything, but uh… we can postpone that for later, right? When you’re not going to infect me?”

“Sure, whatever,” she muttered. “Just remind me when I’m not ill. Anyway, I’m gonna go find Max and get that chocolate bar off him, not that I’ll be able to taste it with this stupid cold…”

He watched her walk off, still holding his breath until she was fully out of sight. Phew, he hated catching colds. Feeling ill was the _worst_ , especially for an athlete like him.

She hadn’t said no to a kiss… He tried not to get his hopes up too much. After all, she didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it. But still, she hadn’t said no! It was going to happen, it was just a matter of time! Maybe she just seemed uncaring because she was ill? Surely she had to have more of an opinion on it than a simple “sure, whatever”?

Kim stood there in the dark, blushing into his hands, trying not to think about it too hard. And failing. A lot.

 

Marinette took the chair away and opened the broom cupboard door. Alya and Nino stumbled out, blinking at the sudden brightness of the main hall.

“Sorry for locking you in there,” Marinette mumbled, “I probably should have asked first but once I’d done it I thought I’d just go through with it and I was being silly and…”

Alya laughed. “Marinette, don’t worry too much. I mean, yeah, suddenly locking people in a cupboard is a pretty bad idea, and you’re gonna end up with a rebellion on your hands if you do that to people in your kingdom. But in this case, it turned out not so bad.”

“Marinette, I have a confession to make,” Nino said, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. “The girl I actually have a crush on is _you_ , but uh, Alya told me you like someone else, so don’t sweat it!”

“Wait, what?” Marinette turned to Alya. “You told him?”

“I didn’t say who it was!” Alya said, taking Marinette’s hand. “I promise! All he knows is that you like a guy, and he’s cool with it. And for the record, I do think he’s pretty cute. You hear that, Nino? You’re pretty cute.”

Nino nervously finger-gunned at her. “I, uh, think you’re pretty cute too.”

Marinette giggled. Perhaps setting those two up had somewhat worked after all, even if throwing them in a cupboard together was not the best way to go about it.

Adrien, meanwhile, was feeling rather warm from his energetic dancing on the dance floor, and headed towards the less crowded corners of the room to cool himself off a little. Who knew Marinette was such a good dancer? He’d been having a lot of fun with her.

To tell the truth… he missed the way she used to speak to him. Something had happened recently, and he couldn’t figure out what, but now she just always stuttered around him, like she didn’t know what to say to him. Had he done something wrong? After all, she didn’t treat other people like that. Hopefully by hanging out with her more often he could regain a sense of the Marinette he knew before.

Wandering around, lost in his thoughts, he absent-mindedly headed for the emptiest spots in the room that he could see. It was dark here, and now that it was late evening and dark in general, even the light through the windows couldn’t make it any brighter around here.

There was someone standing over there, never mind going in that direction then – wait, it was just Kim, his friend.

“Hello Kim!” he said, walking up to him and tapping his shoulder to get his attention. It seemed like Kim had been lost in thought about something too, or perhaps someone.

“Oh, hey Adrien,” Kim said feebly, turning to look. All of a sudden, his face went bright red, almost as red as the clothes he usually wore. His eyes momentarily flicked upwards to something on the ceiling, then back down again at Adrien.

Adrien looked up at the ceiling and –

Oh.

There was mistletoe there. Right above them.

“So, uh…” Kim was now staring off to the side somewhere, determinedly not looking at Adrien. “That mistletoe… it’s, um… considered good luck and tradition to um… well, isn’t it?”

Adrien could fill in the blanks himself. He knew perfectly well what mistletoe was for during yuletide celebrations.

But… Kim was a boy. Did that count?

It hardly mattered if it counted. What mattered was that if Adrien’s father found out, he would be livid. He would say Adrien was in so much trouble. That the school was a bad influence. That Adrien was being a rebel.

Looking up at Kim, with his handsome face and tall, athletic figure… Adrien couldn’t help but wonder if being a rebel was such a bad thing. Especially if it wasn’t quite on purpose, which it very well might not have been, considering how he could feel his heart beat speeding up when he thought about it.

Yes. He wasn’t being a rebel on purpose. Boys could look beautiful too sometimes, right? And if a beautiful, handsome boy asked for a kiss, well… what if Adrien didn’t want to say no? Did that still make him a rebel? What would his father say to that?

Never mind. It didn’t matter what his father said. It was time for Adrien to live his own life now, not just what his father wanted him to do. And if Adrien was going to kiss a boy, then so be it.

 

A short while later, Kim found Max sitting on the steps to the terrace just outside the main hall, a drink of lemonade in hand.

“Hey, Max, can I talk to you about something?” Kim asked, sitting down beside him. “It’s something really, really weird. Like, _really_ weird.”

“Of course,” Max replied, putting his drink down. “What’s up?”

“Okay, well, um. Just say that there was this guy. And he totally definitely liked a cute girl. And it’s not the first time he’s liked a cute girl, he’s liked loads of cute girls before. He’s definitely into cute girls. Well… just asking, but…” Kim ran a hand nervously through his hair. “…would it _also_ be possible for him to be into cute guys? Even though he’s a guy himself? Like, is that a thing that can happen?”

“Yes, Kim. That is indeed a thing that can happen.”

“Oh, okay. Is it bad?”

“No, it’s not bad at all.”

Kim breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks Max, that’s reassuring… To be honest that wasn’t an imaginary scenario. Not completely. I mean, I’m not sure, but there’s this one guy… He’s really awesome. And nice. And I knew I liked him a lot as a friend, but I didn’t really think about it in any other way because I didn’t know that was even possible, but… I can’t deny it. He’s really cute.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Wait, really? You like a cute guy too?”

“Oh yes,” Max sighed. “I like a very cute guy.”

“Wow, what are the odds of us both being like this?”

“A lot higher than you’d think, actually. It’s not uncommon.”

“Is it like, something more common in your kingdom?”

“It’s surprisingly common everywhere, Kim, people just don’t talk about it because it’s been so engrained in everyone not to. But at least in my kingdom it’s much more accepted these days, so hopefully in other parts of the world it soon will be too.”

“Wow.” Kim looked up at the moon, resting his head on his hand. “I had no idea before today. I honestly never thought about it. And I guess I’m not entirely sure, maybe I just like him like a friend, I don’t really know… it’s kind of hard to tell…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to know.”

“Yeah, I guess not. I never was very good at judging my own feelings, was I? And anyway, it’s not like Adrien would like me back, so…”

“Adrien?”

Kim suddenly went red, throwing a hand over his mouth. “Wait – no – I meant – ugh, dang it!”

“Don’t worry, Kim, I won’t tell anyone,” Max chuckled. “Adrien is rather exceptional, I can’t blame you for being into him. Anyway, I meant to ask this before: did you kiss Alix after all?”

“It’s not Alix who I kissed,” Kim said rather quietly, looking away. “She had a cold so she said she’d do it some other time, and then uh… Adrien turned up, and…”

“And that’s what got you thinking about all this. That makes sense.”

Kim buried his face into his knees, mumbling, “I can’t believe I had my first kiss, and I can never tell anyone about it because _it was with a guy_.”

“Well, I’m always here if you want to talk about it.”

“Thank you, Max. That means a lot. You’re just… the coolest best friend ever. I feel like I don’t say it enough. So thanks for being so awesome all the time.”

“It’s no problem.” Max picked up his glass of lemonade. “So, did you want to go back into the party or do you think you’re done for tonight?”

“I’m definitely done,” Kim said. “I think I’ll just go back to my dorm. Goodnight, Max.”

“Goodni– mffhgfh!”

Kim had suddenly pulled Max into a big bear hug, and he didn’t let go for a long, long time.


	14. Aeroplanes!!!

It was the start of the winter holidays, and most of the students would be going home to their families for these few weeks while the school was shut for renovations and upkeeping. Kim had been asked by his parents to come back home, but he instead wrote them a quick letter informing them that he would be going to stay with Max instead, and left before he could receive a reply. He knew they wouldn’t be happy, but so what? As a prince, surely it was his duty to visit other countries and learn about new places, getting to know other leaders in the meantime!

The journey to Kanté only took two days, unlike the slow week’s travel time it took to get to Lê Chiến. First there was a short trip on an ocean liner, then an overnight maglev train. It was the smoothest kind of train Kim had ever been on in his life.

“Maglev stands for magnetic levitation,” Max informed him while Kim was looking around the sparkly clean insides of the train in wonder. “The train is actually suspended slightly above the tracks using magnetic repulsion, leading to less friction and therefore much faster speeds and smoother travel.”

“Wait a second – do you mean to tell me this train is _flying?_ ”

“Well, hovering, yes.”

“That is the coolest thing ever! We need these cool train things in my kingdom too!” Kim ran up to the window and pressed his face against it, looking at the blur of green and yellow outside, passing by too quickly to focus on properly. “How fast are we even going?”

“300 km/h, though there are trains that have exceeded those speeds before.”

“Do you think it’s possible for a human to run that fast too? If they practised really, really hard?”

Max laughed. “Definitely not, Kim, though I know you can certainly run very fast by human standards.”

 

Reaching the capital city the next morning, Kim was first of all stunned at how _tall_ the buildings were. Not only that, but they seemed to be made out of all sorts of shiny metals and glass, giving a very unique and unconventionally beautiful skyline.

As the train slowed down and made its way through the vast city on little suspended monorails, Kim was able to see that these were not the only types of buildings. There were smaller ones with beautiful architecture, painted in bright colours with mosaic patterns all over them. Max pointed them out and talked about them as they passed.

“That one is the Kubdel Embassy, it has a very stylistic design. That one over there is the National Theatre House, where you can see all sorts of traditional plays and shows. On your left you’ll see the Museum of Modern Art, it’s a very interesting place though I feel like you’re not the sort of person who would be enthusiastic about going there…”

Kim looked down at the street below, which the monorail tracks towered over like a long bridge, and saw that there were cars. Endless rows of cars, in all sorts of bright colours, and people walking around in bright, clear, patterned clothing. He had never seen anything like it. A group of small children looked up at the train and waved, so Kim happily waved back.

“Dude, your kingdom is _awesome_ ,” he said to Max. “Like, it’s actually the coolest place I’ve been to, and I thought Bourgeois was nice.”

“You’ve barely even seen this place yet!”

“But it’s so futuristic! You’ve got all these huge skyscrapers, and these magic flying trains, and so many cars there’s traffic, and a city this big it would take days to walk around, and…”

“If you think this is advanced, wait until you see Alix’s kingdom. They’ve got plants growing up the sides of their skyscrapers there. Which is impressive considering that most of her kingdom is desert.”

“You two are the luckiest ever.”

“Not necessarily, I mean, everyone’s kingdom has something special about it. I’m sure your kingdom is a lovely place too. You just like it here because it’s different.”

“Nah, it’s not just that. It looks so… you know, clean. Organized. Like a really nice place to live. Whereas sometimes back home when I’m travelling around by horse carriage I see places that don’t look so good, like I wouldn’t want to live there if my life depended on it. And I want to do something about it, because everyone deserves to live in a cool place like this country.”

“Yes, everyone deserves a nice place to live. Unfortunately this kingdom isn’t without its problems too. Poverty exists everywhere, though we can do our best to help lift as many people out of it as possible. Crime exists everywhere too, and all we can do is try to stop it and prevent it.”

“You seem to be doing a much better job than most other places I’ve been to. Everyone here looks rich.”

“Well, I suppose the city is quite affluent, though I’d say the vast majority of the population are just middle-class…”

The train pulled into the station and slowed to a halt. Kim and Max were ushered down a long red carpet from the train to a waiting vehicle, while porters carried their luggage for them.

“This is such a cool car,” Kim muttered in awe as the chauffeur opened the back door to let them in.

“It’s a limousine, or limo for short,” Max said. “They’re longer than usual cars. As royalty, we get to ride in these by default.”

“Whoa… neat…”

The ride from the station to the palace was fairly short. Stepping out of the limo and into proper daylight, Kim realized that the temperature here was incredibly warm for December, despite being well into the northern hemisphere. He rolled up his sleeves, regretting packing a lot of warm clothes. He wouldn’t need them.

The palace itself was big and painted mostly white to keep it as cool as possible, and the inside was huge and filled with marble pillars, with tiled marble flooring everywhere too. Kim was immediately introduced to Max’s family (who he had met a few times before), then shown to the guest quarters where he would be staying.

Wow… not only did this big, airy room have a brilliant view overlooking this incredible city, but it had an electric ceiling fan. An actual, adjustable, spinning fan that could be controlled by a dial on the wall. Kim spent at least 15 minutes playing around with it, watching as the blades moved quicker and quicker until they were an undistinguishable blur.

Wait, there was a microwave oven in here too??? He had only ever seen pictures of those! He pulled a half-melted chocolate bar out of his pocket, put it in, then closed the door and pressed a few numbers. It started making a whirring noise, and after some seconds it beeped. Opening the microwave door again, the chocolate bar was now a sticky puddle. How awesome!

 

Over the next few days, it was like living a dream. Max showed Kim all sorts of incredible things that could be seen in this kingdom – electric refrigerators and freezers, sunglasses, clothes made from a strange material called “nylon” (which was somehow a type of plastic, supposedly), and of course, helicopters. There was a helicopter pad on the roof and Max took Kim up to show him this magnificent machine, though they weren’t permitted to fly in it.

It wasn’t just all the modern inventions that made this country interesting. Max also made sure to take Kim sightseeing, though with an armed guard to keep an eye on them and make sure the paparazzi and fans didn’t get too close.

The city had some of the most splendid architecture Kim had ever seen. Many of the more historic buildings, especially the mosques and other places of worship, were so stunning that Kim was tempted to spend all his money on a camera just so he could take pictures of everything and remember it forever. Not just any camera either, but a colour camera, since everything here was so colourful, especially the beautiful robes most people wore.

Max explained while showing Kim around that although most people here spoke French, there were so many other languages spoken too that most people knew at least two or three different ones quite fluently. He also told Kim about how most of this country was either arid or semi-arid, but the rainier areas to the south were used to grow cotton and collect water, while the other areas focused more on scientific research and technology advancements, often collaborating on projects with Kubdel to the northeast.

 

A few days into the holiday, when Kim was finally getting used to being here, Max sent for him to be woken up fairly early.

“I have a surprise for you today,” he said, as a butler led them to the limousine. “You’ll get to see something really, really cool today.”

“What is it?”

“If I told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise!”

Kim watched out of the tinted windows as the limo set off. They seemed to be heading away from the city, as there were fewer buildings around here and the roads were wide with cars going at high speeds over multiple lanes.

He observed the signs on the sides of the road, and… wait a second, did that one say “airport”?

“You’re taking me to the airport!” Kim gasped. “Oh my gosh, you’re gonna show me what real aeroplanes look like!”

“Yep, that’s it,” Max said, grinning. “You’ll get to see them taking off and landing and I could even show you inside one if you want. And there’s another surprise in store too.”

“I can’t wait!” Kim could barely sit still anymore, bouncing around on his seat and fiddling with the seat belt impatiently.

They arrived at the airport and were immediately taken to the VIP lounge, where there were comfy sofas and a big bar to get drinks and snacks from. Kim, however, ran straight over to the window and stared out of it in amazement.

Those were planes. Those were _real planes_ , right there, parked outside, the ones that flew through the sky like birds. They were huge, way bigger than he had imagined. They had big noses and wings and tails, and hundreds of little round windows dotted across the side, and colourful logos painted onto them…

He watched as one of the planes on a distant runway suddenly accelerated forwards, going faster and faster, tilting upwards slightly, until –

“Max! Max look! That one over there! It just _started flying! It’s actually flying oh my gosh –_ ”

“Magical, isn’t it?” Max said, coming to stand beside Kim.

“Yeah! It didn’t even need to flap its wings or anything, it just went WHOOSH and then zoom and then… MAX THAT ONE OVER THERE IS LANDING, ARE YOU SEEING THIS, IT’S LANDING ON TINY WHEELS –”

He couldn’t even express in words how incredible it was. These huge, bulky machines, could actually carry people through the sky! Wasn’t that just the most amazing thing ever? He could stand here for hours, his breath misting up the window, watching the planes going up and down the runway, defying gravity in the most magnificent way possible…

Not too long later, Max tapped him on the shoulder saying, “It’s time for the other surprise now. And, I guess, if you want to see the inside of a plane – a private jet, to be precise – you’ll get a chance to, since it’s just landed.”

“That would be awesome.”

Kim and Max followed one of the airport staff members down a few corridors and then outside. There was a smaller plane here now, with the side of it opened up to reveal cargo crates that were being carried out and put onto transport wagons by staff members.

A portable set of steps had been wheeled over to the door of the plane, providing a pathway to the ground. The door opened and out walked Pharaoh Alix and her pet snake. She quickly waved at Kim and Max and then ran down the steps to see them.

“What are you doing here?” Kim spluttered, suddenly wondering if his hair was okay, was he wearing something sensible, did he have any spots, oh wait of course she wouldn’t care about any of that, but still…

“I flew over with a trade shipment!” she said. “I’m always doing that, I love planes and it means I get to meet up with Max. And you too, this time.”

“Good to see you, Alix!” Max said. “Is your brother here too?”

“Yeah, he fell asleep even though it was only about an hour flight. It takes him like a year to wake up. I mean same, but like, how can you fall asleep on a one hour plane journey?”

Sure enough, Alix’s older brother was just exiting the plane and walking down the steps. He had plastic glasses too, just like Max, and for some reason was wearing a scarf despite the heat.

“This is Jalil,” Alix said. “And Jalil, this is Kim. Kim the Second, I mean.”

“Oh yes,” Jalil muttered, “the one who lost the race.”

“Oh come on, that was ages ago! Give him a break… Anyway Kim, have you ever seen the inside of a plane before?”

Kim shook his head. “Never even seen one in person before today.”

“Seriously?” said Jalil. “Wow Alix, you were right, they are really backwards…”

Alix elbowed him. “Shush, be nice to my best friend!” She started climbing back up the stairs. “Come on, Kim! Take a look at our private jet! Not that all planes look like this on the inside, but the good ones do at least.”

Kim followed her up the steps and into the plane. The inside looked like a modern lounge, with comfortable seats and tables that could be pulled out or stowed away. There were cabinets overhead to store things in and some kind of music was playing, though Kim couldn’t figure out where from. There must be speakers hidden away somewhere.

“Whoa, this is so cool!” he said, looking around at everything. “And what does it feel like when the plane is actually flying? Does it feel like you’re going really fast?”

“Nah, it just feels like normal,” Alix replied. “Unless you get turbulence and it’s a bumpy journey, but otherwise you forget you’re even on a plane.”

“Turbulence?”

“Yeah, like when you’re flying over mountains and stuff and the air is weird and it makes the plane ride bumpy… I don’t know the science, ask Max about that. Or Jalil, he’s an absolute nerd, by the way.”

Kim was barely listening, too busy messing around with the reclining settings on the chair. “Oh yeah, okay. Hey, what sort of trade shipment things were you transporting?”

“Just raw materials this time, nothing too interesting. The good stuff usually goes by train. Speaking of good stuff, they’re working on getting actual televisions installed on aeroplanes next so you can watch movies while you’re flying!”

“What? That’s so cool, and also so unfair.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get televisions to the rest of the world someday too, okay?”

“I hope so…”

Once Kim had finished having a good look around the plane, they went back outside. Alix and Jalil were accompanying them back to the palace for lunch, and leaving to go back home later on in the day. The limousine was easily big enough to fit them all for the ride back to the city.

“So, do you think you ever want to fly in a plane someday?” Max asked Kim.

“Heck yeah! It looks so fun! When will I get to do that?”

“You could always come to visit my kingdom next holiday, you’ll get to fly in a plane then,” Alix said. “I usually just take the ocean liner from Bourgeois to the northern port and then catch a short flight from there back to where my palace is. If you came along I could show you.”

“Wait, you mean in the spring holidays? Stay? With you?”

“Yeah, if you don’t have to go back home, that is.”

Kim tried not to read too much into that. She was asking him to stay with her for the holidays, it totally wasn’t like that meant anything, of course…

He put on his most casual tone and said, “Sure, that might be, like, a cool idea or something, I guess… whatever…”

“Awesome!”

“Not awesome,” Jalil corrected. “Do you really think dad’s going to be okay with you randomly inviting a friend over for several weeks? He barely let Max stay for two days that one time, remember?”

“It’s fine, he’s warming up to Max so he’ll warm up to Kim too. And plus, that last time was before I was crowned pharaoh. Now I’m in charge so I can do whatever I want.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“Yeah, but I like to pretend it’s true.”

“Are you annoyed that the throne went to your little sister instead of you?” Kim asked Jalil suddenly, but then regretted it the second he’d said it. How tactless was it to ask something like that? Ugh, why did his brain just _not work_ whenever Alix was around?

Luckily Jalil did not seem annoyed at the question. “No, it’s better like this. Ruling a country is a stressful job. At least this way I can choose to pursue careers I’m actually interested in instead. Like studying ancient history.”

Ah, yes. That did sound nerdy. Was that why Alix always got along so well with Max? Did he remind her of her brother somehow? That would explain things.

 

It was already lunchtime when they reached the palace, so they had lunch together, and then it was time for Alix and Jalil to go back to the airport to catch their flight. Apparently the planes all ran on strict schedules and if someone didn’t turn up in time, they would simply miss the flight. Of course, since Alix and Jalil were royalty their flight would just end up delayed if they weren’t there on time, but it was better not to let that happen or it would mess up the timetable completely. And there was always the possibility of getting caught in traffic in a kingdom like this. It was better to leave early rather than late.

“It was nice to meet you,” Jalil said to Kim. “I guess if you’re coming to stay in spring then I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you too,” Kim said, though Jalil was already walking off out of the room.

“See you at school, Kim!” Alix gave him a light punch on the arm (or rather, she _thought_ it had been light – it actually did hurt, though Kim would never admit that) and started to leave too.

Kim suddenly remembered something. Was anyone else in here? No, it was just the two of them… well, and that snake on her arm, but Kim the First didn’t seem so scary these days…

“Alix, wait a second,” he said, taking her hand and trying to ignore how flustered he suddenly felt. “I just remembered, um… well you told me to remind you, so… Wait, you don’t still have a cold, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Okay good… so um, remember at the winter party? When there was that mistletoe, and you were ill so we didn’t kiss? I mean, since there’s no one else around I guess we could just do that now… if you want…”

She looked up at him, frowning. Kim started wondering if he had been too obvious that he liked her. What if she was annoyed or something? What could she possibly be thinking about?

“You’re too tall,” she said finally.

Oh, was that it? That wasn’t a big deal, Ivan and Mylène had a height difference too. “I could just–”

Before he could even react, she had somehow hooked her foot round and tripped him over backwards, catching him just before he landed on the floor.

“There we go, that’s better. Now I get to be the tall one for once.”

Kim lay perfectly still, barely even daring to breathe. She was literally _holding him in her arms_ , her face barely a few inches above his own, strands of her pink fringe dangling over his forehead…

She leaned down to kiss him –

– and promptly dropped him just a millimetre away.

“Hey, what was that for?” Kim said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head where it hit the floor. But then he heard footsteps. Oh, no wonder she had suddenly stopped, but come on! Did someone really have to come along and ruin this right now?

It was Jalil. He popped his head around the door and said, “Come on Alix, what are you waiting for? We have a flight to catch!”

“Yeah, I know, sorry,” she said quickly. “I was just, uh… fighting Kim. And I totally won.”

“That’s not true!” Kim said, jumping to his feet.

“Anyway Kim I’ve really gotta go now so goodbye, I’ll see you at school, just remind me about that other thing some other time, okay?”

“Okay…”

She hurried out of the room and Jalil closed the door.

Kim sighed. He had been _so close_. He was so sure it was going to happen that time. But still, he just couldn’t figure out her opinion on all this. Did she even want to kiss him? She didn’t exactly seem enthusiastic, but she didn’t seem annoyed either, just… apathetic. Almost as if she didn’t even care one way or another. But how?

He was still thinking about it when Max came to visit him in his room later.

“Max, I was this close to kissing her,” Kim said straightaway, holding his fingers up just a tiny bit apart. “But then her brother interrupted us, so she had to leave…” He lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling fan. “Maybe this was what Master Fu meant when he told me not to get my hopes up. That it’ll take a hundred years for it to finally happen.”

Max sat down on the bed beside him. “Kim… why don’t you just tell her how you feel? Ask her out?”

“I still don’t really feel like asking anyone out, Max. Not after Chloé. And anyway, it’s okay, Alix is my friend and I like it that way. I don’t mind. I’m just glad she likes hanging out with me.”

“Trust me, I can definitely understand that feeling,” Max said, chuckling a little. “That’s fair enough. Anyway, I was going to ask… do you want to go bowling? We have plastic skittles.”

“Plastic skittles!” Kim sat up so fast the blood rushed out of his head. “Yes please, that sounds so awesome!”

“Alright then, let’s go!”


	15. A place to think

The winter holidays seemed to end far too soon for Kim’s liking. These past few weeks had been the best of his life: getting to explore a new country, seeing what that was like, learning about all the amazing tech, spending lots of time with Max without school getting in the way…

But now he was back in the Bourgeois Empire, back at the school, back in classes. It felt cold and boring and restrictive in comparison. He hadn’t been studying much during the holidays and now that he had been thrown back into it, he realized how sluggish his brain had become. It was tiring.

At least there was duelling club to look forward to… until Kim remembered how awkward things were between him and Adrien now. Neither of them wanted to bring up what had happened at the winter party, though it was clear they were both thinking about it considering how overly polite they were being to each other. Kim wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about Adrien now anyway. He just wanted their old friendship back. It would be less confusing.

And then there was Alix, too. Kim never seemed to get a moment alone with her to ask her about the very delayed mistletoe kiss, there was always someone else around! And he didn’t want to specifically go and knock on the door of her room late in the evenings just to ask for this, that would make it too obvious, wouldn’t it? And he was nervous, too. He couldn’t deny that anymore. No, he would just have to wait. It wasn’t a big deal anyway. It would happen when it happened.

 

A few weeks in, Kim was feeling rather restless. He and his classmates were having lunch in the long dining hall and all he could hear was Chloé’s loud, grating voice, droning on and on about something rather uninteresting. No one else was talking, simply fiddling with their food silently.

Catching Marinette’s eye across the table, Kim sneakily flicked a pea at her. She grinned and threw a piece of broccoli back at him, giggling. Ah yes, this was way more fun! Thank goodness for Marinette. He could always count on his old friend to be there for him.

He put a carrot slice on the end of his fork and tried to catapult it at her, but his finger slipped at the last moment and the carrot ended up going in the wrong direction entirely.

Right at _Ivan_.

Ivan wordlessly turned around, stood up, marched over to Kim and suddenly shoved his face straight into the pile of mashed potatoes on his plate. By the time Kim had blinked the potato out of his eyes and wiped it off his face with a napkin, Ivan had already gone to sit back down. Most of the classmates were watching now, looking amused.

Without thinking, Kim grabbed Rose’s bowl of soup and then stood up and went and poured it straight down Ivan’s front.

“That’s for shoving my face into the mashed potatoes, you giant loser!”

Ivan lobbed a glass of water at Kim’s face. “You were the one who started it! You’re always being like this!”

Kim picked up Ivan’s entire plate and planted it upside-down on his head. “Yeah well you look like an idiot, so there.”

“WHY YOU LITTLE–”

Ivan was suddenly hit by a wad of rice pudding from the other direction. He turned around to see Marinette and Alya both looking very guilty and pointing at each other accusingly. He leaned forwards and flipped both of their plates upwards into their faces, though he was smiling a little now.

“A food fight, really?” Chloé said, standing up and smoothing out the front of her dress. “You are all such heathens. But… I’m going to win anyway.”

She picked up a jug of juice and flung it down the table, where it landed right in front of Adrien, spraying him with juice. He laughed and stood up too, grabbing and handful of tomatoes from the salad bowl and throwing them back at her.

“Is this a food fight?” Alix said from right at the other end of the table, leaping to her feet. “Yeah, bring it on!” Not bothering to waste time with small skirmishes, she simply picked up Nathaniel and dowsed him straight into the vat of milk behind her.

It wasn’t long before the whole class had joined in, throwing food at each other and messing around. The nobles at the other tables were hesitant at first, but they soon decided to participate too. The hall was filled with teenagers laughing and getting food and drink everywhere.

 

That very evening, Kim sat in Mr Damocles’s office, being told off for starting it.

“You will have detentions every single day after lessons for a whole two weeks, do you hear me? You will be on _cleaning duty_ , so that you understand how the servants feel having to clean up after your thoughtless actions. A letter will also be sent home to your parents informing them about this event. Hopefully that will deter you from ever causing so much trouble again. You may be a prince, but that doesn’t mean you can just do anything you want without consequence. Is that clear?”

Kim nodded, not trusting himself to speak. It was so unfair! Starting that food fight had been an accident, all he was doing was messing around with Marinette! He didn’t mean for all this to happen! And why wasn’t everyone else getting into trouble for joining in, huh? Now he was going to have to do stupid detentions and probably get told off even more by his parents.

 

Sure enough, a letter arrived from them in a few days. Things did not look good.

_Unless you start behaving yourself young man, we will have you taken out of school and tutored at home. It seems that being away has made you much less receptive to us as you continue refusing to listen. We expect to see you here back home during your spring holidays, and if you keep up with your bad behaviour, we will see you here much sooner than that, mark our words._

“It’s not fair, Max!” he complained, brandishing the letter in his hand. “I’m actually trying to be good! It just doesn’t work! And I don’t want them to pull me out of school, I know lessons aren’t that fun and stuff but all my friends are here and I am learning things, so…”

“I know.” Max gently took the letter off him and tossed it into the bin. “Kim, listen. You’ve been working so hard over these past few months, and I have absolutely noticed an improvement. I don’t just mean in your grades and homework, I mean in general. You’ve improved at sports, you’ve improved at being nicer to people, you’ve improved at thinking things through before you act. There are always going to be slip-ups, and this time it wasn’t really your fault either. But what’s important is that you’re trying your best, and I’m so proud of you for that, no matter what your parents or the teachers say.”

“Max, that’s really nice of you. But I’m still a reckless idiot and you know it. The only reason I’m any better now is because you’ve been helping me.”

“Then the solution is that I should help you even more, right? I think I have an idea. You’re always on edge, that’s what. If we can get you to have some time to just be calm and relax, that might help you.”

Without waiting for an answer, Max opened the door and beckoned Kim to follow him. He led him out into the huge school grounds, right towards the corner, into a part that Kim had never been before. There were beautiful gardens of flowers everywhere, with hedges trimmed into various shapes and wild butterflies flying around lazily.

“Here we are,” Max said, gesturing to a large golden fountain just in front of them. “This area of the grounds is particularly relaxing, sometimes I come here if I need to focus. Perhaps if you just sit down here and chill out for a while every now and then, it might help you be less hot-headed sometimes.”

“I’ll try…”

Kim took a seat on the edge of the fountain and tried to “chill out”. He watched the insects on the flowers, the clouds slowly moving through the pale blue sky, the distant silhouettes of students wandering through the corridors through the windows of the school, birds landing on the roof and sharing food with each other. There wasn’t much to do or look at here. No wonder this place was so relaxing.

He tried to think about things that weren’t so stressful. Like being back in the Kanté Kingdom, gazing at the planes crossing the sky. Being taken around the city by Max. Falling asleep at night to the calming whir of the ceiling fan. Running up and down the maglev train, marvelling at how smoothly it travelled. Reminiscing did feel quite nice.

Within five minutes, however, he had already had enough.

“Max, I’m sorry I’m so bad at this, but… I’m _bored_. Can’t we go play Monopoly with Alix instead?”

“We can definitely do something else if you want, though we are certainly not playing Monopoly. You two nearly killed each other last time over the last dark blue card.”

“What are you complaining about? You were the one who ended up winning!”

Max’s smile seemed rather smug. “Of course I did. Monopoly is a game of tactics, not brawn. But anyway, I suppose that’s enough for today. You might get better at relaxing the more often you do it. It’s essentially meditation. Do you think you’ll keep trying?”

“Yeah, definitely. But you have to be here with me, okay?”

“Wait, really? Why?”

“It’s easier to think better when you’re around,” Kim admitted. “I just feel calmer. Like I don’t want to do anything stupid because you’re right here to stop me anyway. I guess you being around just makes me less impulsive or something... See what I mean? I can actually somewhat explain what I mean for once. Usually I can’t figure stuff out this much.”

“Oh… um… well…”

Kim gave Max a hug. “I think it’s awesome that you’re my best friend. It’s a good balance, isn’t it?”

“Y-yeah…”

“I feel like sometimes I take you for granted. But I’ll try and do that less now. If you ever want help with anything, or want to talk about anything, I promise I’ll do my best. You’ve done so much for me and I want you to know that I really appreciate it.”

“Kim, that’s… that’s so thoughtful…”

“Looks like this thinking fountain place worked after all, huh?” Kim suddenly let go of him and stood up. “Anyway, let’s go do something else. Fine, not Monopoly, but something. Come on!”

He ran off and Max quickly followed.

 

After a detention one day, Kim stood in the corridor, staring at a spot on the ceiling up ahead and not moving. That was _the biggest_ spider he had seen. What if it dropped on him when he went past? What if it was poisonous and tried to kill him? Wait, the word was venomous, not poisonous… whatever. He couldn’t pass. Not with that creepy eight-legged, eight-eyed monster ready to pounce.

“Oh hey Kim, were you at detention again?”

He took his eyes off the spider for a few seconds to see Alix standing in front of him, her pet snake wrapped around her neck as usual.

“Yeah, yeah, detention…”

She looked up at the spider. “Are you scared of spiders or something?”

“No!” he said quickly. “Definitely not, no way… pfffffff, as if someone like me would be scared of a tiny spider… that’s the stupidest thing ever… I am not scared of spiders, definitely, certainly, 100%...”

The spider moved a tiny bit and Kim involuntarily jumped backwards.

“It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone,” Alix said. “But I won’t get rid of it for you unless you admit it.”

“Okay fine, I hate spiders! They’re so creepy and gross! Can you just kill it or get it outside or something so I can move?”

“Sure. I’ll get my snake to eat it if you want. But I’m not tall enough to reach so you’ll have to pick me up.”

Kim was almost sure he hadn’t heard right. Usually people who tried to pick up tiny little Alix were met with death threats. But she was actually asking him to? She trusted him that much? Well of course, they were best friends and everything, but still?

Trying not to be overwhelmed by the adrenaline that was suddenly hitting him, he gently lifted her up onto his shoulder. She was even lighter than he had expected, despite the weight of the snake she was carrying too. Surely she couldn’t have weighed more than about 30 kilos! How did she even live?

“Alright, the spider has been eaten,” she said after a few seconds. “You can put me down now.”

Kim wondered if now would be a good time to ask for that mistletoe kiss, since it didn’t seem like anyone else was around. “Can I just keep carrying you? You’re just so tiny, it’s adorable… like a little cat or something… and I guess now we could–”

“If you don’t put me down immediately I’ll claw out your eyeballs and shove them down your throat.”

Okay wow, a threat like that was… was… kind of attractive, he had to admit…

What? No it wasn’t! He quickly put her down, trying to ignore the weird part of his brain that somehow thought being killed by Alix was not a bad thing. He tried to compose himself to ask about the mistletoe kiss again, but she was already gone. So much for that.


	16. Cupid Festival

Kim sat in his room one weekend, trying to work on his homework. His detentions had finally ended but without having had that extra time for studying these past two weeks, it felt like he had fallen behind. It was time to get back on track.

The weather outside was nice today and through the window he could hear way more people than usual. Why were so many people up and about today anyway? It wasn’t normal.

There was a knock at his door. He opened it to see Alix there, holding out a little yellow sticker at him.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “I think the Cupid Festival is completely overrated and stupid and I don’t like it. But I guess it’s a good day to celebrate friendship so I got you a friendship sticker anyway.”

Cupid Festival? That wasn’t today, that was…

…on 14th February. _Today_.

Oh no. He had completely forgotten. It was customary to get friendship stickers for your best friends, but he didn’t have anything for them at all.

“Oh, uh, thanks!” he said. “But you don’t have to, so like, I guess you could give that sticker to Max and…”

“I already gave one to Max, so you’re having this one,” she said, reaching up and sticking it to the front of his shirt.

“Thank you,” he muttered, his heart sinking. “I’ll just, uh, go and get your present too…”

He ran over to his drawer and started rummaging through. There had to be something in here he could give her as a friendship gift! He couldn’t just let her leave without something after she had given him a sticker, that would just be unfair!

“Kim, if you forgot it’s okay–”

“NOPE, I didn’t forget!” he lied. Reaching right into the back of the drawer his hand closed around a little box.

Oh… it was the brooch he had bought for Chloé.

“Um, do you want this?” he asked, holding it out at Alix and trying to sound as casual as possible.

“That’s nice of you and all, but there’s no way I’m wearing that thing. And anyway, you bought it for Chloé, didn’t you? Just give it to someone you’re actually interested in instead.”

She turned and walked out of the room before Kim could pluck up the courage to admit that he really was interested in her. That might have been a pretty stupid way to admit it, anyway.

Still, was she annoyed at him for forgetting to get a friendship gift? Was she hurt? She did say that she didn’t like the Cupid Festival, but she’d got him a sticker anyway, hadn’t she? Clearly their friendship was important to her. And he’d just had to go and screw that up by completely forgetting to get her a gift! And Max too, for that matter!

There was only one thing for it. Stuffing the brooch box into his pocket, he left his room and headed down to the Cupid Festival stalls as quickly as possible.

 

Max was just walking down through the square outside when Kim tore past him towards the stalls, something falling from his pocket as he did so. It was a familiar little heart-shaped box… oh yes, the brooch. Max picked it up and went over to the stalls.

“Kim, you dropped this,” he said, holding the box out at his friend.

Kim shook his head. “Look, Max, thanks but… ugh, just keep that brooch. Chloé didn’t want it and neither did Alix so like, someone’s got to have it. It might as well be you. Just keep it for now and give it to someone you like, okay?”

“You mean… you’re giving the brooch to me?”

“Yeah. I know you’ll never wear it, I’m sorry, I just…”

Max gave Kim a quick hug before he could stop himself. “It’s okay, Kim, thank you anyway.”

“No problem…”

Kim had given the brooch to him. The brooch, that one he had bought specifically as a courting gift for Chloé… he had given it to Max. The thought made Max’s insides melt like hot wax. Of course Kim had meant it as a friendship present, that much was obvious, but still! Kim! Had given! The brooch! To Max! He wanted to run around screaming.

Instead he got a grip on himself and then stuck a little yellow friendship sticker on the front of Kim’s shirt. “Happy Cupid Festival, Kim. I already gave a sticker to Alix and I don’t know anyone else well enough to consider a friend, so it’s just you and her.”

“Thanks, Max. Speaking of friendship stickers…”

Kim turned to the noble who was in charge of running the Cupid Festival stalls, Count Jean Duparc.

“Can I buy two friendship stickers please?”

“Sorry, Your Highness,” Jean mumbled, “we’re sold out of friendship stickers I’m afraid.”

Kim turned to Max, looking dejected. “Max, I’m so sorry, I forgot to buy you and Alix stickers earlier and now I can’t, I’m just so disorganized and I’ll try and make it up to you and…”

“Kim, it’s alright! You gave me the brooch, didn’t you? That’s a good enough present for me, it’s more unique than a sticker anyway so it’ll always remind me of you. It’s the thought that counts. I know you care, I don’t need some sticker to tell me that.”

“Aw, Max!” Kim smiled at him and ruffled his hair. “You’re too good for me, honestly. But… oh man, I still don’t have a friendship gift for Alix! She’s probably annoyed at me or something, I mean how tactless was it for me to start looking through my stuff for an unwanted item to give her while she was _right there?_ What should I do?”

Max had an idea, and the very selfish part of his mind did not want to suggest it, but he ignored it. “There are still Cupid stickers for sale. You could always buy her one of those, couldn’t you?” He gestured at the red heart-shaped stickers that were still numerous on the display.

“I’m not buying her one of those, how awkward would that be? That I didn’t even bother getting her a proper present earlier and then I just suddenly go and confess my love for her? Nah, she’d hate it. She doesn’t even like the Cupid Festival. I should… I… I need to think.”

Kim grabbed Max’s arm and pulled him along with him, walking briskly all the way to the thinking fountain, where he sat down and started brainstorming ideas.

“There’s nothing I could get her that she doesn’t already have! _Nothing!_ Her kingdom is so advanced, she’s already got a phone and… other cool stuff I can’t even think of…”

“Why don’t you give her something from your own kingdom?” Max suggested.

“Like what? Food? I can’t cook to save my life… I think I might have a silk painting stashed away somewhere but I have no idea, and she probably wouldn’t want that anyway… Or I guess I could always… okay no. No that’s cheesy. That’s really cheesy, I can’t.”

“What is it? Surely it can’t be that cheesy.”

“It is.” Kim buried his face in his hands, his voice sounding muffled. “When I was younger I was taught to play this kind of guitar thing we have back home, I don’t know what you call it in French, maybe some kind of lute, but we called it the đàn nguyệt. And I was thinking… I could… play her a song or something… oh for goodness’ sake, I sound like Ivan!”

“Hmm, alright, that is quite cheesy,” Max admitted. “But if you don’t have any better ideas then you may as well do it.”

“Are you sure?”

Max was certainly not sure. After all, logically speaking this might actually _work!_ He could just see it… Kim serenading Alix with a romantic ballad, her catching on and agreeing to be his sweetheart, no more problems for those two…

And then where would that leave Max? With no chances left with Kim ever, that was where! But then again, it wasn’t like he ever had a chance in the first place. He had already made up his mind to help Kim as much as possible. No point being selfish, it wouldn’t get him anywhere.

“It’s up to you,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess I should probably do it. Right now, before I realize what a stupid idea this is and stop myself.” He stood up. “Thanks, Max. I’ll let you know how it goes.”

Kim headed back to his room to find the instrument, defiantly refusing to think about what he was doing. Ah yes, there it was, behind a bunch of things in a corner. It really was somewhat like a guitar, though a circle shape with only two strings. He hadn’t played it in a while and gave it a quick test just to make sure he remembered. Yes, it was all coming back to him. Maybe all those hours he had been made to practise were worth it after all.

He took it with him and went and knocked on the door to Alix’s room, partly hoping she was there, partly hoping she wasn’t. It turned out she was.

“Hi Kim, what’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure…”

As soon as she had let him in and closed the door, he said, “I’m sorry for not getting you a present earlier, I forgot because I’m an idiot and I should have just told you that.”

“Huh? Oh, don’t worry about that, I don’t really care–”

“But I do have a present for you now. Kind of. Just sit down and listen and be quiet and don’t laugh, okay? It’s really cheesy but if I don’t do it now then I never will so just… don’t laugh. Please.”

She sat down on her chair, the wrong way round and leaning over the back of it, like usual. “Okay…”

Oh boy, she looked cute like that. Really cute. It was warm in here and she was wearing a tank top and everything, the cutest possible thing to be wearing. Well, he may as well channel that. He held up the lute and started playing.

The good thing about only knowing songs from his own country was that Alix did not know Vietnamese, so she clearly had no idea what it meant. She just watched with interest, not laughing at all. Thank goodness.

It felt weird playing to someone who had probably never heard this instrument before. Almost reassuring, in a way, since any mistakes would go unnoticed. And there were a lot of mistakes, that was for certain. Kim realized by the end that being out of practise for so long had rather affected his skills. Well, at least it was over now, and he hadn’t messed up too badly.

“Nice!” Alix said, clapping. “You’re a real rock star, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“A rock star. Like, a… cool musician person, I’ll explain some other time. Anyway, thanks. That was a way cooler present than a sticker, for the record. And seriously, don’t worry about forgetting earlier, I really don’t mind. You’re a good friend, I don’t need some random overrated festival just to think so. To be honest I do feel a bit bad about turning down the brooch earlier, I know it’s rude to turn down a gift…”

“It’s okay, I gave it to Max,” Kim said.

“Really? Good for him.”

“Anyway I should probably go now…”

“Already?”

“Yes, that was kind of nerve-wracking, okay?”

“Fair enough,” she said, smiling. “Oh wait, before you go – what did the words to the song mean?”

Kim didn’t look at her. “Just, you know, generic friendship stuff…”

“Cool! You’ve gotta teach me some Vietnamese sometime, alright? I’ll teach you Arabic if you want. We could swap.”

“Yeah. Cool. See you later, Alix.”

“See you!”

As soon as he had left and closed the door behind him, he let himself think about all the things he had pointedly avoided thinking about.

That definitely had not been a “generic friendship” song. It was a _love song_.

Should he have told her the truth? Was today the right day for it? Well, at least he’d managed to tell her somehow, even if he didn’t have the guts to do it in French.

Why was he like this? He couldn’t help feeling that before Chloé’s rejection, things like this would come naturally to him. It would have been easy for him to say how he felt, without needing to hide behind music! After all, he had barely even had to think before asking out Chloé, despite not knowing her that well. And yet now he couldn’t even confess to his own friend that he liked her!

Would he ever be able to say it? What if she just went her whole life without ever knowing, because he was too much of a wimp to tell her?

Hang on a second… this must have been how Ivan had felt. All that time ago, when Kim was teasing Ivan about not being able to confess to Mylène… this must have been what it was like. In that case, karma was certainly punishing Kim for being the jerk that he was back then.

But Ivan and Mylène were together now, so clearly one of them must have made a move at some point. And if they could do it, then why not Kim?

But… what if she said no?

Well, that wouldn’t matter, would it? As long as they were still friends. He was fine with that, he didn’t want to just use their friendship as a stepping stone to romance or anything. The fact that she was his friend meant a lot to him. More, in fact, than just some silly crush. If she liked him back then that would be great, but if she didn’t then that was fine too, and he’d just have to move on.

The possibility of her liking him back, though… it seemed to fill his heart and brain up with something that just made him unable to think rationally. Love was weird, wasn’t it? Painful yet overwhelmingly sweet at the same time. The Cupid Festival was supposed to be celebrating it, but was it even something worth celebrating, considering how much it could _hurt?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The instrument from this chapter is a traditional Vietnamese instrument called the đàn nguyệt and it sounds like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql9C6ot7uF8)!


	17. Awkward encounters

The spring dance – which Max insisted actually took place during late winter – was going to be a mandatory, formal event. The seasonal socials all seemed to alternate in this way, with the autumn ball having been optional and formal, the winter party being mandatory but informal, and the later summer gala being both optional and informal. In that case, this spring one was definitely going to be the least fun.

Kim did not know what to do. He wanted to ask Alix to go with him, but would that be too obvious? And what would even be the best way to ask about it? His awkward attempts back before the autumn ball had not exactly been smooth, so…

Walking through the square alone one windy evening, trying to figure out how to go about this, he saw someone in the distance. Could that be… no, it was Adrien! Why did it have to be him?

Kim’s first instinct was to go hide behind the nearest doorway until Adrien had safely passed so that he wouldn’t have to look at him. Things were still far too uncomfortable between those two, even though it had been months since the winter party. They hadn’t even properly talked to each other since then. Would things ever be able to go back to normal?

Well, nothing would go back to normal if they just kept avoiding each other like this! Maybe it was time to do something. Kim marched forwards, gulping down the mild terror that was welling up inside him.

“Hi Adrien,” he said, trying to keep his voice sounding casual.

“Good evening Kim,” Adrien replied. He was standing formally with his hands behind his back, not even smiling. “How are you?”

“I’m good, thanks. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

There was a long, frosty silence between them, the only sound being the wind whistling through the square.

 _Say something!_ Kim’s brain was screaming. But what should he say?

_Anything! Anything at all!_

“The weather is windy,” he mumbled.

“Indeed, it is.”

Another long silence.

Kim frantically tried to think of something sensible to actually talk about, but his mind was still so preoccupied with thoughts about the spring dance! What if he talked about duelling club? No, that was all they ever talked about… Should he bring up what happened at the winter party? No, that would make things more awkward…What if he flirted with him – _no!_ Where did _that_ come from?

“I’ll see you in class then, I suppose,” Adrien said, the corners of his mouth lifting into what might have been a brief smile, before he started to walk off again.

_No, you can’t let him leave again without sorting this out! Just say something –_

“Will you go to the spring dance with me?”

Kim quickly clapped his hands over his mouth and stepped back. But it was too late. Adrien had heard what he said and had turned around to face him again, looking shocked.

“Kim… that’s…”

Weird? Stupid? Creepy? Awkward?

“…very sweet of you.” Adrien stared at the ground, nervously fiddling with the tassels on his coat. “But Marinette already asked me, and I said yes to her. Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay!” Kim babbled. “It’s fine – you should go with her – I didn’t mean it anyway –”

“You didn’t mean it?” Adrien looked back up at him, his voice sounding different all of a sudden, like he was… _hurt?_

“No that’s… that’s not what I meant! I totally did… I mean… I…”

There was no salvaging this situation now, not when Kim’s brain seemed to be on fire and perhaps exploding at the same time. He took to his heels and ran off without another word, leaving Adrien standing there confused.

 

The very next day in the library, poor Max had to deal with Kim lamenting over it to him.

“And then I didn’t even say anything, I just ran away!” Kim said, his face buried in Max’s shoulder. “I’m such an idiot! And he probably thinks I don’t like him! But I do like him! … Well, not like that, but… okay, maybe yes like that? I don’t even know! Save me, Max!”

Max awkwardly patted Kim on the head, not really being sure what to do. Dealing with emotionally distraught people was not his strong point, especially not when that emotionally distraught person was _Kim_. Max hoped the goosebumps on his arms weren’t too noticeable, or that Kim wouldn’t somehow be able to feel the insane speed of his pulse through the fabric of his shirt.

“It’ll be alright,” Max said, knowing  that kind, calming statements usually tended to bring people to ease. “Things will be fine.”

“But what if they won’t be? What if he declares war on me?”

“For what, being gay enough to ask him to a dance? He’s nicer than that.”

Kim sat up properly. “Being what?”

Max was about to explain when Alix walked into view, carrying a pile of books that was practically the same height as she was. She dumped them onto the table with a thud.

“Alright, that stupid spring dance thing is coming up and since I’m being forced to go this time, either one of you nerds is going with me,” she snapped. “Or both. I’m not fussy. I just don’t want to be bored while I’m there. Formal events are always boring when you don’t have friends to mess around with.”

Aha, this was a good opportunity to be a matchmaker. If Max could somehow sneak his way out of this and get Kim and Alix to go to the dance together, well… The thought gave him a rather lonely pang in his heart, but he paid no attention to it. He had to do this for his friends.

Before he could speak up, however, Kim had cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, let’s just all three go together as friends!”

“Awesome.” Alix picked up the stack of books again. “Now I’ve got homework to do, and you know I get too distracted hanging around with you guys. Apparently if I hand it in late again I’ll get a detention and you know I’m not letting that happen. See you later.” Staggering under the giant weight of the books, she slowly left.

“Kim, you could have–”

“I know, I know,” Kim sighed, resting his head sideways on the table and looking at Max. “I could have asked her to go with me properly. But I just wasn’t thinking straight! I’m still freaking out over what happened with Adrien, and I can never even think sensibly around Alix anyway, and… and… I need you, Max.”

“W-what?”

“I need you there. At the spring dance. It’s gonna be a formal event and I have no idea what I’m doing at those, ever. If I went alone with Alix it would just be a disaster. At least if you’re with me I might not accidentally commit treason or something.”

Max stuffed his hands into his pockets so Kim wouldn’t see them shaking. “Oh, well, I’m sure you’d do fine…”

“And anyway, I can’t just leave you all alone to go by yourself, can I? You’re my best friend, you mean so much to me! I’d love to go with you. Heck, I should have just asked you all along.”

Every word seemed to give Max a mini heart attack. It was platonic, so very platonic, and… it was killing him. Slowly, on the inside, every single thing Kim did was killing him.

“Max, are you okay?”

The way Kim was looking at him, frowning ever so slightly, the sweetest mixture of puzzled and concerned… it was too much.

“I don’t feel very well,” Max muttered, standing up and pushing his chair in. “I think I’ll just go take a nap or something.”

“Oh, well I hope you feel better soon, bro! Let me know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Kim.”

It could never work. He knew that. Logically, statistically, everything – it could never work! Kim’s feelings for him were wholly platonic! And even if they weren’t, then what? They were princes! Expected to rule their own kingdoms someday! Unlike commoners they had a duty, and one they couldn’t simply throw away just like that.

Max knew he would never, ever abdicate. Not even a chance. Being a good ruler to his kingdom meant too much to him. And would Kim ever abdicate? Not before sorting out whatever mess his family had with Agreste, first. Kim wouldn’t leave something like that in the hands of people who already didn’t like Adrien. But without abdicating, how could rulers of two such distant countries ever be together?

Not to mention the backlash. Oh dear, the backlash. Not so much from Kanté, which was thankfully fairly accepting, but the rest of the world. In the not-too-distant past monarchs had been deposed for things as simple as marrying commoners, so there was no way something like this could go down well…

Never mind. It didn’t matter, because it would never happen. The chances were absolutely miniscule. No, the most likely thing to happen would be Kim finally asking Alix to be his sweetheart, staying on the throne long enough to make peace with the Agreste Empire, then abdicating and marrying her, living happily ever after…

And that would be _fine_. Max would be happy for Kim, he really would. He cared about Kim too much to be selfish over something like that. He wasn’t jealous, just…

_Sad._

 

Kim returned to his room to find another letter from his family. Part of him was tempted just to throw it away without reading it, but that was probably a bad idea. He opened it and skimmed through. Well… it had been a good thing he hadn’t thrown it away. This time there was more than just him being told off.

_It might be wise of you to come back home soon before things escalate. There has been an increase in raids near the border, correlating with rising tensions between our kingdom and the Agreste Empire, and it may not be safe for you away from home. We won’t call you back just yet, but please be aware. We also implore you not to socialize with Adrien further; he may be your classmate but any product of an empire like that can only be an enemy._

Enemy??? No. Things may not have been great between him and Adrien, but that poor kid was definitely not Kim’s enemy! And he would prove it! He ran over to Adrien’s room and knocked on the door.

“I have to speak to Adrien about something,” he said to the huge bodyguard who opened the door.

“Kim, is that you?” Adrien squeezed round the side of his bodyguard into the doorway. “Oh good, I wanted to talk to you too!” He looked up at his bodyguard. “Could you please let us have a moment? And please don’t tell my father.”

The bodyguard grunted and walked away, leaving the two of them alone. Adrien pulled Kim into the room and closed the door.

“My parents are saying you’re my enemy because you’re from Agreste, but it’s not true,” Kim said quickly, trying not to look at Adrien in case he would get flustered and mess up again. “You’re not my enemy. You’re my friend. At least… I hope you are. I know things got weird after, uh… you know…”

“I’m sorry,” Adrien said. “I didn’t mean to change anything between us, I just…” He hid his face in his hands. “I think I had a mini crush on you and I didn’t know what to do about it! There, I said it.”

“Really?”

“I know, it’s weird, I don’t even know why or where it came from, I only realized it at the winter party and I was too nervous to talk to you about it!”

Kim breathed a sigh of relief. “Me too, Adrien, me too.”

Adrien lifted his head out of his hands slightly. “You liked me too?”

“Yeah. I mean, um, I think I did. I’m not completely sure. It’s kinda confusing, especially because there’s someone else I like a lot more and I was focusing way more on that, but… yeah. I didn’t realize it until the winter party either.”

“Wow, that’s kind of funny,” Adrien said, giggling a little. “It’s so similar with me. I’ve been liking Marinette a lot for the past few weeks, and so the only person who I told about you was Nino…”

“And the only person I told about you was Max!” Kim laughed, finally being able to look at Adrien properly. “Anyway, I think most of all I want to be your friend, just like how we were before. I was being too much of an awkward idiot in between, but I’m sorry about that. You’re awesome, never mind what my parents think.”

“Aww, that’s really sweet of you! You’re awesome too, and we should definitely still be friends!”

“And I’m pretty sure you and Marinette make such a cute couple.”

Adrien blushed. “You think so?”

“Yeah, trust me. You two deserve each other. You’re both so cool.”

“Thank you! And I’m sure you’ll make a cute couple with… well, whoever it is that you like. I’m guessing it’s Alix.”

Now it was Kim’s turn to blush. “What? N-no… it’s not… I mean…”

“I won’t tell anyone, don’t worry!”

“How did you even know?”

“Everyone does. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“What?!” Kim blushed even more. “I’m not obvious! I’m like… super subtle! Yeah!”

Adrien burst into laughter. “If you say so!”

There was a knock on the door and Adrien opened it to see that his bodyguard had returned.

“Time’s up, I guess. Bye, Kim! It was really good to talk to you again!”

“Yeah, same!”

Kim waved and left the room, feeling much lighter than he had before, like a huge weight had been lifted off his mind. Adrien was his friend again… thank goodness.


	18. Matchmaking

Max sat alone in his room, trying to study, but his thoughts just kept going back to Kim. It didn’t help when someone knocked on his door – surely that could only be Kim, coming to see how he was doing? But he opened the door to see Alix there instead.

“Oh hello Alix, come in,” he said, stifling a yawn. Perhaps he really should have taken a nap after all. All this pointless pining was more tiring than it seemed.

Alix entered the room and immediately said, “Dude, I really need your help with something.”

Ah, it was finally happening. Surely she must have realized Kim liked her, and wanted his help with that. Of course. It was only a matter of time.

“Yes, certainly, what is it?”

She leaned on her sceptre, absent-mindedly flicking the lid open and closed. “I’m pretty bad at being a ruler. I have, like, _no_ idea what I’m doing. I mean, yeah I know I’m bad at acting the part and doing all the pointless boring ceremonial stuff, but I don’t really care about that. What I want help with is the actual practical aspects of ruling a country, the stuff that will make a difference. You’re good at that, so uh… could you help me out? Please?”

“Yes, of course,” Max replied, taken aback. This was what she wanted help with? Well… he had underestimated her, alright.

“You look so surprised.”

Whoops. “I just… didn’t realize you…”

“Didn’t realize I cared so much? Well yeah, I try not to. But honestly, the pressure of ruling the most developed country in the world is starting to get to me. I know everyone expects a lot from me and I’ve pretty much already let my family down considering what I’m like, so I’m not doing the same for the rest of my country. They deserve a good leader.”

“I’m sure you haven’t let your family down!”

“Trust me, I have. Even fricking Jalil would have made a better pharaoh than me, everyone thinks it even if they don’t say it.”

Her tone and expression hadn’t changed, but her hand was gripping the sceptre so tightly it was going white. Clearly this was affecting her much more than she let on.

“I’ll help you be a good leader, don’t worry,” Max said. “But really, your powers are mostly ceremonial. You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, the council can just make all the governing decisions for you if you feel you’re not good at it. I’m sure they’d do a good job, considering they’re democratically elected and all. They’ll do what’s best for the people.”

“I don’t want to have to rely on the council to run my country for me, thank you very much. I’ve seen how corrupt other countries can get seriously fast, despite seeming all modern and stable and whatever. I’d rather be properly informed about the direction my country is going in. I don’t want it going backwards just because a bunch of charismatic liars got voted into the council and the monarch did nothing to stop them messing stuff up. That happened once to Rossi, you know.”

Wait, she knew all that? He hadn’t even realized. He always thought she didn’t care about how to rule her country, preferring to just mess around and have fun all the time. Had that just been an act? Or was she simply growing up to be more responsible than she had been in the past?

“You’re right,” he said, “countries can advance or decline very rapidly depending on who’s in charge. I’m proud that you want to be a responsible leader.”

“Do you think my family would be proud too? At least if I tried? They would, wouldn’t they?”

“Of course they would! But even if they wouldn’t, that’s not the end of the world–”

“Yes it is!” She snapped the lid of her sceptre shut so hard it made a loud click. “You’ve always been a good child, really smart and good at everything and always trying hard, your family thinks you’re awesome and to be honest, so does mine, I bet my dad wishes you were his kid instead of me. But all my life I’ve just been really… I don’t know, immature! I want to at least do _something_ to show them that I’m not just some failure, I have to prove myself to them…”

So that was what this was all about. Well, he had something to put her mind at ease.

“Alix, I have to tell you something. During my oracle session with Master Fu, the question I asked was whether the GDP of my kingdom will ever overtake yours while I’m alive. I expected it would, since I’ve got so many plans to boost the economy and that sort of thing, and I didn’t expect you would try that hard with it. But guess what? I was wrong! As long as I live,  your country will be ahead of mine. Which means that you will do a good job, no matter what happens.”

Her face lit up. “Wait, are you serious? My country’s economy is going to stay better than yours? But like… you’re Max! You’re so good at that stuff!”

“I know I am. But obviously it seems you’ll be good at it too, at least enough to keep your country going forward for a long while.”

“Yes, nice! That’s so awesome! I mean since you said it’s within your lifetime there’s always the possibility that you’d just die like tomorrow or something but uh… I’ll assume you’re too sensible to suddenly accidentally die. And that I’m gonna rule my country awesomely until then.”

“That’s the spirit. I’ll admit I was a bit jealous when Fu told me. I was annoyed since I didn’t expect you cared or that you would work very hard, so I thought it was unfair, but clearly I’m wrong…”

“Nah it’s cool, I don’t work nearly as hard as I should. But I’ll definitely try harder from now on. So yeah, you’ll tutor me then? How to be an actual good ruler? Don’t worry if you’re busy with tutoring Kim or other kids in the class, it’s okay, but–”

“I’ll definitely tutor you, that’s fine! I enjoy tutoring, actually.”

Alix laughed. “Of course you would. You’re a nerd. Anyway, thanks. If you want in return I’ll see what I can do about getting those annoying trade quotas lifted so your country can make more tech yourselves. I know you hate having to buy it off us all the time.”

“Thank you very much indeed! I’m so glad our countries have such peaceful relations, you know.”

“Well duh.” She poked him in the arm. “We’re best friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes, but I don’t just mean that,” he said, poking her in return. “I mean historically we’ve been peaceful too. Unlike Lê Chiến and Agreste, which might cause trouble for Kim and Adrien one day.”

“But they’re friends, aren’t they? Surely they can sort out whatever rift exists?”

“It might be complicated. If one ascends the throne sooner than the other, leading to one side being friendly while the other is still hostile, it might… well, it might turn into a mess. And I’m not sure Kim would be up for dealing with something like that.”

“That’s why he’s got you,” Alix said, grinning. “You can just advise him through whatever happens, right? It’ll be fine.”

“You seem to have a lot of faith that I’ll be able to fix things.”

“Pfff, it won’t be you who fixes things, it’ll be Kim and Adrien. You can just help, since you and Kim are so close.”

Max felt those longing pangs in his chest again. Yes… he and Kim were so close. Just not exactly in the way he hoped.

That reminded him, shouldn’t he use this as an opportunity to be Kim’s wingman? Perhaps properly getting Kim together with someone else would stop Max yearning after him so much.

“Anyway Alix,” he said, “speaking of futures… have you noticed there’s someone in this class who likes you?”

“Well I should certainly hope there are people who like me, I’m not that scary, am I?”

“I meant in a romantic sense.”

“Oh yeah, but trust me, that girl has someone else she’s crushing on way more than me, even I can tell–”

“And I don’t mean Juleka. I mean someone else.”

“Oh.” Alix frowned, tapping her sceptre thoughtfully. “Are you sure? Because I seriously doubt it.”

“I’m sure.”

“Jeez, it’s not _you_ , is it?”

“Of course not,” Max said, chuckling. “I swear I’ve already told you I’m not into girls, other than friends or occasionally adoptive sisters.”

“Yeah, exactly. Who is it then?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Oh, okay then, whatever. So anyway – I don’t know what days you’re free for tutoring, I’ve got football on Fridays but other than that I could probably squeeze it in any time…”

She seemed oddly unconcerned. Did she seriously not care that someone liked her? And knowing that was the case, how had she not figured out it was Kim? Practically everyone in the class knew at this point! Either she was just oblivious to a ridiculous extent, or she knew and was pretending not to. Max wasn’t sure which, but he hoped he would find out soon.

 

The spring dance did turn out to be fairly boring. Every guest who entered the room had to be formally announced by name and title, leading to a long queue outside the door. The music that played was slow and dreary, and the only dancers were couples who had actually been trained in how to perform all these courtly dances – there was no improvising allowed here. Everyone who spoke to each other was being as formal as possible, with curtseying and bowing and addressing people by their full titles, even though usually by this point in the year most of the students hardly ever bothered with such formalities.

Max had insisted on going to get drinks for his friends, leaving Kim and Alix alone before they could protest about it. Kim didn’t know what to do – he couldn’t make a move here, at this boring event, so what was even the point? He looked around, trying to think of something to talk about.

Juleka and Rose were over there, just coming off the dance floor where they had been waltzing together. Evidently both of them must have been taught how to dance at some point in their lives. Neither of them had let go of the other’s hand yet…

“Hey Alix,” Kim said, “just wondering, but is Juleka the chick who asked you out to the autumn ball ages ago?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” she replied. “I’m not spilling anyone’s secrets.”

“I bet it was her. Is it like… common for girls to be into other girls? Before I got to this school I didn’t even know it was a thing.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty common,” Alix said, shrugging. “Being a lesbian or bi or whatever, it’s fine. It’s normal. So is guys who like guys, for that matter. I don’t know why other kingdoms don’t talk about it so much. Probably confuses the heck out of the not-straight part of the population.”

“Yeah, it does,” Kim muttered. “I actually… uh… well, at the winter party I kissed Adrien and got pretty confused because I didn’t realize I liked him. I didn’t even realize it was possible. But yeah, I guess I’m into guys too.”

“Good for you.”

“What does that make me? Does it have a name?”

“Um, I guess it just means you’re bisexual? I don’t know, dude, do some research or something, I can’t say what you are for you.”

Bisexual. Huh. Maybe it would be a good idea to research that at some point. There had to be books in the library about it, right? Or maybe he could ask Max. Max would know everything.

“So, um…” Kim wasn’t sure if he should ask or not, but he was curious. “Are you like… into girls? Just out of interest?”

Alix hesitated long enough for Kim to notice.

“Well no, but…”

“But what?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

It certainly wasn’t nothing, that was for sure, but he didn’t ask anymore. Maybe she just didn’t know or something. Anyway, there was something else he wanted to know more. He walked over to Juleka and Rose.

“Hey Juleka, are you the one who asked out Alix ages ago?”

Juleka looked down, shuffling her feet nervously, mumbling something about it having been practise and that she didn’t really mean it.

“Oh, so are you and Rose sweethearts now?” he asked her, looking between them, since they were still holding hands. Juleka shrugged and mumbled something else, her face going as pink as Rose’s dress.

“Prince Kim,” Rose said, frowning, “you really shouldn’t put poor Juleka on the spot like that, especially not in public! You’re lucky I don’t mind either way, but what if I did? Not everyone is so accepting of things like this! Or what if it embarrasses poor Juleka? Or if she doesn’t want to talk about it? You really ought to think a little before you speak, young man!”

“Sorry,” Kim muttered, wanting to kick himself for being so reckless. He thought he had been getting that under control lately!

“Rose!” Juleka said suddenly, her face even pinker, taking Rose’s other hand into hers as well. “What do you mean by saying you don’t mind either way?”

“Oh, my sweet Juleka! I meant I don’t mind if you think of me as a friend or a sweetheart… I think you’re wonderful either way.”

“But Rose, what about your servant boy Ali from back in Lavillant?”

“I barely even know him! But I know you so well now, you’re my best friend after all!”

Juleka shut her eyes tightly and quickly said, “Princess Rose, will you be my sweetheart?”

“Of course I will! Juleka, you’re so cute, if we weren’t at a formal dance right now I would hug you so hard–”

“Oh Rose, you’re… you’re awesome…”

Grinning, Kim swaggered back over to where Alix was standing, watching with a somewhat amused expression on her face.

“I’m the best matchmaker ever,” Kim boasted. “I just got Juleka and Rose together.”

“It was only a matter of time, Kim,” Alix said, trying not to laugh.

“Oh come on, give me a little credit?”

“Nope, those two were literally on the verge of getting together already, even I noticed it, and I never notice stuff like that!”

Kim laughed, but then realized what that meant. If she never noticed stuff like that, well, she would never notice he liked her unless he made it obvious. But every time he considered it, Chloé’s rejection came to mind and… no. It was too nerve-wracking. Maybe he would do it some other day, just not today.


	19. Too reckless to live, too lucky to die

Kim knew perfectly well that he should go back home to his own kingdom in the spring holidays. His parents had constantly been sending him letters telling him that they were expecting him back, that things were better and safer inside the kingdom, maybe that way he would behave himself and not go “fraternizing with the enemy” …

But he didn’t want to go home. He was worried that if he did, he would never be allowed to come back to school. His parents had been subtly hinting that they were just planning on making him stay in Lê Chiến and not let him return.

Why? He was learning so much at school, and he had been improving in leaps and bounds! Not just with his grades, but everything. He knew he was a much nicer person now than he had been back in September. He knew so much more about other kingdoms, about how ruling a country worked, so many things he hadn’t known before that his parents had never taught him.

His friends were here, too. He didn’t want to leave them behind. Of course he would have to someday, that much was obvious, but he had expected to have a whole three years at this school. It wasn’t fair to be forced to leave before he had even been here for a year yet!

So that was why, despite knowing he would get into so much trouble for it, he accepted Alix’s invitation to go and stay in her kingdom for the holidays. Well, maybe it also had something to do with him really wanting to get to fly in an aeroplane. And also see her kingdom, since he had heard about how cool it was. And getting to spend more time with her, which was always a good thing…

They went by ocean liner to the same port city that Kim had caught the maglev train from last time when going to Max’s kingdom, but this time instead of heading to the train station, they went to the airport. This one was even bigger and sleeker than the one back in Kanté had been, with more planes visible through all the giant windows everywhere.

“What happens if it rains?” Kim asked, as they were being led down a metallic looking corridor to the plane.

“Literally nothing,” she replied. “A bit of rain is not gonna stop a plane from flying.”

“Really? What if there’s a storm?”

“Well, I guess you’d just fly around the storm…”

“What would happen if the plane got struck by lightning?”

“I don’t know, dude, I’m not Max. Just ask him this stuff. We’ve got telephones back at the palace, you can call him up.”

That just seemed so weird. Max would be so far away, in a completely different country, and yet it would be so easy to just talk to him whenever? Wow, modern technology really was something else.

This plane was a different one to the one he had looked in before, since this one was only for passengers, not cargo. The interior still looked similar, with comfortable seats, round windows and overhead cabins to store things in.

Kim sat next to the window so he could look outside. As soon as the plane started moving he pressed his face right up against the window, not wanting to miss a thing. What would it look like, being so high up in the air?

The plane slowly moved onto the runway, then suddenly accelerated fast enough that everything looked like a blur, with the engines roaring loudly. Within a few seconds it was lifting off into the air.

“THIS IS SO COOL, LOOK AT THAT BUILDING IT LOOKS TINY – HEY WE JUST PASSED A CLOUD I THINK – wait you can just fly through clouds? Oh yeah of course they’re just water… HEY THOSE HOUSES DOWN THERE LOOK LIKE TOYS OR SOMETHING–”

“It’s cool, isn’t it?” Alix chuckled.

“Yes!” Kim just couldn’t take his eyes off the scenery below him. “And you’re just used to all this?”

“Nah, you can’t really get used to it. I still think planes are awesome and I’ve been flying on them my whole life.”

“That’s it, I need aeroplanes in my country. First thing I do when I become ruler is build an airport.”

For the rest of the flight, Kim refused to take his eyes off the window for even a second. Halfway through a trolley came through the plane, offering food and drink, but he ignored it completely. The scenery, being at such a height and looking down at everything the way a bird would… it was too good to miss.

The landing was just as incredible as the take-off had been, and Kim felt reluctant to leave. At least he would get the chance to fly again when going back to school in a few weeks. He found himself looking forward to it a lot.

From the VIP lounge of this airport, Alix called up her brother on her sceptre. “Hey Jalil, can you come and pick us up from the airport? Me and Kim have just landed. The human, I mean, not the snake. Well yeah the snake’s here too. Both Kims.”

“What? You said you were arriving tomorrow!”

“I know, I know, I told dad that because I knew he’d send some giant entourage to get me from the airport and just… no. I’m not dealing with that. You know I hate the press and bodyguards and stuff, it’s bloody annoying. Just please get over here and pick us up.”

“You didn’t even tell him that Kim’s going to be here too…”

“Well I _kinda_ did? It’s not my fault if he just happened to assume I was talking about my pet snake, is it? And he can’t just send Kim back home now, not when he’s an esteemed guest. A foreign prince.”

“Alix, you are going to be in so much trouble, you know that? But fine, I’ll be there soon. Just stay put and don’t do anything stupid.”

“I’m gonna go surf the conveyor belts like a skateboard,” she said quickly, then hung up immediately, grinning. She turned to Kim and said, “I’m not really gonna do that, he’ll just drive here quicker if he’s worried.”

“You really didn’t tell your family I’m gonna be staying here?” Kim asked her. “Wouldn’t they need to prepare?”

“They’re always prepared for guests. But at short notice they won’t have anything planned for you, so they’ll just have to get me to show you around instead. Which means they’ll have to cancel all my plans, so I don’t have to do boring pharaoh stuff. It’s a win for both of us.”

“But your brother said you’ll be in trouble.”

“I’m always in trouble,” she sighed. “Anyway, want me to teach you how to use a telephone while we’re waiting? We could call up Max.”

“Yes please!”

 

Jalil soon arrived to pick them up, driving a very clean, modern-looking car. The staff at the airport helped put the luggage into the back, then they set off.

“So, this is what desert looks like,” Kim said, staring out of the window again. “It looks way less sandy than I thought.”

“There’s sandy desert here too, trust me,” Alix said. “It’s just mostly rocky though.”

“That’s amazing… So does it just, not rain at all?”

“Not much.”

“Wow! Back in Lê Chiến it rains all the time, we’ve even got a whole rainy season and everything. This is so interesting, seriously, I can’t wait to see more of this place…”

“You might not get to,” Jalil said, not taking his eyes off the road in front of him. “Knowing our dad, Alix will be grounded and there’ll be no one to show you around.”

“What about you?”

“I’m busy with my university course, thank you very much.”

“I won’t be grounded,” Alix said. “Dad can’t do that, not when we have a royal foreign guest staying with us. The most he can do is give me a curfew or something. Which I can easily ignore, and you know it.”

“Yes, there’s no point giving you any rules, is there? You’ll just break them.”

“Exactly. Speaking of breaking rules, can you let me drive? Kim doesn’t believe that I can so I want to–”

“No, you’re not driving! Not only are you not old enough, last time you almost _killed_ us, I’m not going through that again!”

“Fine…”

The scenery outside was still rocky and desert-like, but buildings were staring to pop up on the sides of the road. Soon enough a city was visible, with huge skyscrapers reaching up higher than Kim had thought buildings could even go. Unlike the ones in Kanté, these ones were all sorts of interesting shapes. Some were cylindrical, others looked more like towers, and one even appeared to be twisting round as it climbed through the sky. There were patches of green growing up the walls, like little farms being grown right there in the city.

The palace, however, was actually a little way out from the city, in a much quieter area. Every road around here was beautifully created, with rows of palm trees growing down the sides of the streets, huge pearly mansions being the most prominent buildings around, fountains on every corner.

“Every single house here looks royal,” Kim muttered.

“Nah, it’s just a fairly rich area,” Alix replied. “The streets are pretty good for skating down though…”

“You’re not allowed to skate down these streets!” Jalil snapped.

“I know, I know, I’m just saying!”

The car soon reached a heavily guarded gate, and was let through after a quick identity check into the palace grounds. Here there really was grass – a giant green field of it, full of carefully planted flowers being watered by some kind of automatic sprinkler system. The palace itself loomed large up ahead, a massive building with countless floors and arches and turrets. It was even bigger than Max’s palace – in fact, it was probably the largest building Kim had ever seen.

A huge door in the side of the building opened up into a room full of cars, where they parked and got out while some servants took their luggage.

“I have no idea what the proper protocol would be now for introducing Kim to the court,” Jalil said, “but I suppose that you should…”

“Oh who cares?” said Alix. “Where’s dad, I’ll introduce him to Kim and then show Kim a guest room and that’ll be fine, right?”

“It’s dinnertime already, Alix. You two should probably go straight to the dining hall and hope dad isn’t too annoyed by your rather… sudden, _informal_ appearance.”

“Dinnertime already? Ugh, I forgot about time zone differences. Fine, I guess we’ll get this over with. Come on, Kim.”

Kim followed Alix down a maze of very lush, carpeted corridors. All along the walls there were portraits, displays of weapons, dazzlingly multicoloured glass windows, screens with hologram displays, bowls of flowers… It was even more lavish than the corridors at school, which had seemed to be over the top.

Alix stopped in front of a large door. “Okay Kim, since it’s dinnertime and we’re late my dad will already be in here and uh… Just be polite. It’ll be fine. Like, use all that boring royal stuff we’ve learnt at school. Bowing and looking down and whatever. Use ‘Your Excellency’ I think, I’m pretty sure that’s the one Max uses. Don’t worry, you won’t be in trouble, you’re a guest. It’ll be me who gets it.”

Royal stuff? He was very out of practise with that, since no one at school tended to bother with the formalities when everyone saw each other every day anyway.

“Alix wait–”

She opened the door without waiting and walked in. Kim quickly followed. The dining hall was much like most of the other ones he had seen in his life, with a long table that had more seats than were in use. The difference was that the table seemed to be made of… what was that stuff called again? Plastic?

Alix’s father was sitting at the table, almost having finished his meal. He had plastic glasses too – was plastic very commonly used in this kingdom? In any case, he barely even looked surprised when he saw Alix enter the room, just somewhat disappointed.

“Hey dad, I’m back,” Alix said.

“I can see that. You would have done well to let me know the exact date you were going to return to the country, though, so that I could have made official arrangements.”

“I didn’t want to inconvenience you.”

“And yet you brought along a guest. Who you should probably introduce, considering that you didn’t bother to have someone announce your entrance when you came in here, like you should have.”

Alix rolled her eyes. “Fine. This is His Royal Highness Prince Kim of Lê Chiến, he’s in my class at school and he’ll be staying here for the spring holidays. So you should probably clear out my schedule so that I can have the time to show around this esteemed guest and make sure his visit is worthwhile.”

“Indeed. I should have known you would do something like this. Anyway, don’t consider this as having been a proper introduction. I expect to see you and your friend tomorrow morning in the throne room, in your _full royal garb_ , to introduce him properly to the full court. Is that clear?”

“Yes, fine, whatever.”

“Good.” Having finished his dinner, he stood up and walked out of the room. A servant quickly came forward to clear up.

“Yeah, he’s not happy,” Alix muttered. “So anyway Kim, what do you want to eat? Looks like there’s a buffet so just pick what you like, or we could always go down to the kitchens and order stuff directly…”

“Is your dad always that formal about everything?” Kim asked. Even his parents were formal, but they wouldn’t tell Kim off for simply walking into a room without having someone announce him, or introducing them to someone unconventionally.

“Yep, pretty much. I told you I never get to do what I want here at home. Anyway, seriously, are you fine with this buffet?”

He looked at the table, not really recognizing any of the food, but surely it must taste good considering how cool everything in this kingdom seemed to be. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Good, let’s have dinner then.”

 

Later that evening, Kim was shown to his room by one of the servants. Not only did it have a giant four-poster bed in it, but it had a refrigerator, stereo, ceiling fan, magnetic dartboard, microwave, and a strange thing in the corner than turned out to be a remote-controlled air conditioning system. Perfect! He turned it on straightaway, since the temperature here in this kingdom seemed to be so warm even though it was evening.

The next morning he was “formally introduced” to everyone, in the official throne room. It was boring and involved a lot of bowing and shaking hands with people whose names he forgot within a few minutes, not to mention the press that stood there with cameras and notebooks, documenting the news about this visiting foreign prince.

It felt so strange compared to how casual everything had been back in Max’s kingdom – but then again, Max was just a prince. Alix was a pharaoh, the actual monarch of her country. It made sense that everything would be a lot more stringent for her.

It was already lunchtime by the time that was finished, so now he had to deal with a boring official lunch with everyone in the dining hall. This was getting tedious already – how did Alix deal with this all the time? Did she just never get any time to herself?

After lunch he was finally allowed to explore this wing of the palace or do what he wanted without interference, and Alix’s afternoon schedule had been cancelled so that she could show him around.

“Thank goodness that’s over,” she said, taking off her headdress as they walked back towards her room, planning to go get the snake before doing something else. “Boring, isn’t it? That’s pretty much what things are always like for me.”

“How do you even cope?”

“By using up all my free time doing stuff I probably shouldn’t. Anyway, since we actually have some time off, I could take you sightseeing in the city. My dad would want us to have strict guards but I know a way to sneak out, I could steal Jalil’s car keys and drive us there myself, and then–”

Jalil himself appeared behind them so suddenly it was almost as if he had sneaked up on them. “What did you just say about my car keys?”

“I said I was gonna steal them and then sneak out to the city. I do it all the time, dude.”

“I know you do.” He put his hands on his hips. “But I’m not going to let you endanger yourself this time, especially not your friend too. If you’re going out to the city without guards then I’m going with you.”

“What? I thought you were busy with uni stuff!”

“I can spare some time for looking after my little sister, you know.”

“No way, we’ll just stay here instead, then!”

“I think it would still be a good idea for me to supervise you.”

“Jalil, I’m 16. I don’t need a freaking babysitter.”

“Oh really? Because if Kim is as irresponsible as most of your phone conversations with me suggest he is, then I’m not leaving you two idiots alone to run around causing chaos freely.”

“We’re not _irresponsible_ , sheesh. Have a little faith in me! Anyway, do you know where my hang-glider is?”

“Why do you want your hang-glider?”

“I was thinking I could go up to the north wing tower and–”

“And jump off, and probably die,” Jalil said, folding his arms. “Because last time you used that hang-glider it broke, remember? I’m not telling you where it is. Knowing you, you won’t even wear a helmet.”

“Alright, fine! What are me and Kim supposed to do then? Play Monopoly? Play darts? Because both of those will probably end in murder.”

Jalil sighed. “I wish Max was here, I’d trust you if he was there to make sure you’re not going to do something completely idiotic…”

“Wait, I have an idea.” Alix turned to Kim. “Dude, have you ever heard an electric guitar?”

Kim shook his head. “No, I mean I’ve heard guitars obviously, but what’s an electric one?”

“Oh man, I so have to show you! Come on!” Grabbing his arm, she pulled him down the corridor.

“That’s a much better idea, but don’t electrocute anyone!” Jalil called to them, before walking off in the other direction.


	20. The worst couple ever

The next several days were very busy. In the mornings Kim had to attend more official meetings, such as being introduced to the mayor, every member of the government council, several influential celebrities, and more people he didn’t even know or care about. It was so exhausting! How could anyone possibly live like this every single day?

The afternoons were a little better, but not by much. Alix had shown him around the nearby city, but with such a large entourage of guards that he really hadn’t been able to see much compared to when he went sightseeing with Max back in Kanté. At least it was a very nice city, with such incredible technology everywhere. At night the skyscrapers were electronically lit up with messages and advertisements, and during the daytime people would walk around chatting on portable telephones, wearing things like sunglasses and plastic jewellery. It looked like such a fun place to live if you were a commoner.

As for things to do inside the palace, it would have been much easier to have fun if Jalil hadn’t been sent to keep an eye on them all the time, making sure they were being safe. It wasn’t that he was trying to be annoying, it was just that his idea of safe was rather restrictive.

“You can’t go tightrope walking five floors up!” he said, exasperated, untying the rope from the window.

“Oh come on, please?” Alix said. “We put blankets on the ground so it’s okay if we fall, not that I’m gonna fall, but–”

“Blankets will not stop you from cracking your head open and dying.”

“But I know how to tightrope walk! Remember that detention I told you about, that one with the book? Well Kim said that he’s better than me at it which is stupid because actually I took less time to do it so I need to show him by proving it–”

“No tightrope walking, and that is final.”

“Well then what are we supposed to do? We’ve already had a karaoke contest, bowling, darts, tennis, I offered to let him hang out with my snake in the enclosure in my room but he didn’t want to… If you’d just let me teach him how to rollerskate, that would be great! It’s not dangerous!”

“Knowing you, you’ll find a way to make it dangerous. Anyway, either find something sensible to do or just don’t do anything.” Jalil wound the rope around his arm and walked off.

“Oh, who cares,” Alix said. “Kim, you’d fit in Jalil’s old skates, right? I’m stealing those and giving them to you. And then we are sneaking out of this darn palace and I’m gonna teach you how to skate. Sound good?”

Kim gave her a thumbs up. “Yep, sounds good. How do you sneak out of here, anyway? There are guards at every door.”

“It’s not that hard. I’ve lived in this palace all my life so I’ve learned that there are two types of guards: the kind who are snitches, and the kind who aren’t. All you have to do is make sure that you’re doing your sneaking when the not-snitches are on duty.”

“How do you know which ones aren’t snitches?”

“Trial and error. Trust me, I’ve been caught out a lot of times before. But I know the guards and their sentry shifts inside-out by now. We’ll be fine. Just follow me and be quiet.”

First they went to an old storage room, which Alix somehow had acquired the keys to get into, and found Jalil’s old pair of skates. Sure enough, they fit Kim just right. Then they went back to Alix’s room to get her skates, along with helmets and elbow and knee pads, just in case Jalil caught them and accused them of not taking their safety seriously. Alix also decided to bring her pet snake along, claiming that she clearly had no real need for bodyguards when she had a live venomous snake that always obeyed her every command.

They left through one of the back doors, the guards on duty turning a blind eye. In order to get out of the palace grounds they had to climb a tree and then jump over the tall fence, landing on the branches of a similar tree just on the other side. It didn’t take too long for them to reach the pristine streets of the surrounding neighbourhood. Hardly anyone else was around, since it was the middle of the afternoon and the temperature was so high.

“Alright, let’s go,” said Alix, bending down to put on her skates.

“Won’t anyone here recognize you?” Kim asked her, putting on his skates too. “This country has like, television and newspapers and stuff, surely they know what you look like. You could get caught so easily.”

“Nah, if I’m not wearing the headdress in public then literally no one realizes it’s me.” She stood up, skates on her feet and ready to go. “So, have you ever skated before?”

“Yeah, totally,” Kim lied, standing up very carefully and trying his best not to fall over. “I’m really good at it… and…”

“Oh really? Because you look like this is the first time you’ve been skating, ever.”

Surely this couldn’t be too difficult? He tried to go forward but promptly fell over. It was like walking on ice! How did she always make skating look so easy?

“Yeah, fine, I can’t skate…”

She laughed and suddenly took hold of both his hands to pull him to his feet. “I’ll help you, don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it.”

No he wouldn’t, not when she was laughing and holding his hands… smiling at him… wearing that darn tank top too… He tried to focus on the snake that was wrapped around her shoulders instead. He would never learn how to skate otherwise, not with his stupid crush on her still going strong.

It really didn’t take him too long to get the hang of it, though he was still prone to losing his balance and falling over every now and then. The two of them raced down the empty streets for a while, quickly skating away whenever they saw another pedestrian about. After a while Alix took him down a somewhat rocky path into an area that seemed starkly more rural, with uneven ground that was hard to skate on. They kept going until they reached a small pond, right there in the middle of the desert, with a few trees and bushes growing around it.

“This is where I first got my pet snake,” Alix said, sitting down by the edge of the pond and putting the cobra down on the ground where it was free to slither around.

“There are snakes here?” Kim said, sitting down too but looking around cautiously. He had just about stopped being scared of Alix’s snake, but wild ones? Those were still too much.

“Yeah, there are. Don’t worry though, they don’t really hang around humans much, especially not at this time of day.”

That still didn’t reassure him, but he tried not to think about it. “So how did you get your snake? Did you just come here one day and like… take him?”

“No, not quite. When I was about 3 years old Jalil would sneak me out of the palace when he was supposed to be babysitting me and we’d always come and play at this pond. We weren’t supposed to, since, you know, _snakes_. Queen cobras may be intelligent and good-tempered, but they’re still extremely venomous. But yeah, Jalil didn’t care back then.”

“That seems so unlike him!”

“Trust me, he’s secretly as much of a rebellious adrenaline-junkie as I am, he just hates getting into trouble a lot more so he stopped being like that somewhere along the line. Anyway yeah, one time we came here in the evening when all the snakes were around. I had taken off my shoes to go swimming and I didn’t realize a little baby snake had slithered into one of them, and I didn’t notice it until back in my room in the palace later because I walked back barefoot. It turned out to be this little snake right here.”

She gave the snake a little stroke on the head, and it gave her hand a friendly lick in return.

“I wasn’t scared of him since I was just a toddler and didn’t know any better, so I just started playing with him and didn’t get bitten or anything. He was really friendly. Of course, as soon as my dad found out he flipped out and grounded Jalil for like 5 months or something. But I wouldn’t let him take the snake away from me, and anyway he didn’t want to try since this precious snake was already attached to me and might lash out if anyone tried to take him away.”

“Is it normal to keep snakes as pets?”

“No, actually. Not cobras at least, since they’re venomous and all. But queen cobras are the most intelligent type in the world. You can train them to understand what you say. They actually do make very good pets. This one does anyway. I did try to take him back to the pond to reunite him with his family, but the other snakes didn’t seem to want him and he just kept coming back to me, so… why not keep him?”

She had taken her skates off and was dipping her toes into the water, sending ripples across the pond surface. That seemed like a good idea to cool down since the temperature was still far too warm to be comfortable.

“And I wanted to name him Imhotep, like after the ancient physician guy, but I couldn’t pronounce that so I just called him Kim. Hey, your full name isn’t Imhotep by any chance, is it?”

“No, it’s just Kim.”

“I thought so. Well anyway, yeah, that’s how I got my snake. He’s been my constant companion and best friend ever since. Pretty much part of my whole pharaoh image. Most people are scared of him, but he’s not going to hurt anyone unless I tell him to. He might look scary but he’s actually pretty sweet. Like a certain someone in our class.”

“Me?”

She laughed. “Nope, I’m talking about _Ivan_. No one’s scared of you, Kim.”

Oh yes, of course, Grand Duke Ivan. The nobles especially seemed to be scared of that guy, but he really was just a gentle giant.

Kim watched the snake for a while, the way its scales glistened in the sunlight as it moved across the rocks… but he found his eyes being drawn back to Alix. It wasn’t the first time he found himself wondering _why_ he liked her so much – sure she was pretty, but so was practically everyone else in the class. What was it, then? Her personality? Probably. But then again he had started liking her before they were even friends, so that was weird…

Having a crush on a friend was just so annoying. At least back when he had liked Chloé, it always just seemed so impartial and distant, like it didn’t even matter that much. If he didn’t want to think about it then he didn’t have to, since he didn’t really see her much anyway. But he couldn’t do that with Alix. They were best friends. He always ended up thinking about how much he liked her a lot more often than he wanted to.

They still hadn’t had that mistletoe kiss, had they? No one else was around. He was just about to bring it up when he noticed that the snake had started curling itself around his arm. It made him almost freeze up in shock.

“Um, Alix? What do I do? Is your snake gonna bite me?”

“No, he’s just being friendly,” she said. “Do what you want. Stroke him or something, or just stay still, whatever. He won’t hurt you.”

Kim very apprehensively gave the snake a small stroke.

“Heh… this isn’t so bad…”

The snake blinked at him a few times, then slithered off again.

“You’re his friend now,” said Alix. “Congratulations.”

“Nice…”

That had been more nerve-wracking than he wanted to admit. But at least he seemed to be getting over his fear of snakes now, or rather, his fear of this snake in particular. That was better than nothing.

In any case, he’d had enough of sitting around. It was too warm out here anyway. “Race you back to the palace?”

“You’re gonna lose,” Alix said, grinning and putting her skates back on. “But sure.”

 

They made it back to the palace fence without being caught, Alix having won the race by far since Kim was still rather unsteady on skates. They sneaked back in with skates still on, heading for the empty middle courtyard so that if anyone asked where they had been, they could just say they were there.

“How about a race around this courtyard now, for old times’ sake?” Alix asked.

Kim was tempted to say yes but he knew perfectly well he would lose again, and anyway he was rather looking forward to walking normally on the ground without a wobbly pair of wheels sliding him around.

“Nah, I’m kinda tired, I’m going back to my room.” He bent down and took his skates off. Yes, that was much better! Solid ground at last!

“Well okay, I’m gonna stay here and try and beat my record. 57.3 seconds, by the way.”

“How do you even measure that accurately?”

“These things called stopwatches. Basically clocks but cooler.”

More advanced technology… was there no end to the sorts of things this kingdom could create?

“Nice,” he said. “See you later anyway.”

“See you at dinner!”

Kim walked back to his room alone. As he passed guards at various checkpoints, he couldn’t help wondering what they thought of him. Should he talk to them? Back at home he chatted with the guards a lot, even making friends with them sometimes. Was he allowed to do that here?

Never mind, he wasn’t in the mood for that anyway. He went back into his guest room, deciding to pass the time by messing around with all the tech and seeing how cool it was.

 

An hour later, however, he was bored. He had already tried out the electric ceiling fan, the microwave, the radio, the magnetic dartboard, even stuck his hand inside the fridge for a few minutes since this kingdom was way too darn hot (before he remembered about the air conditioning and turned that on instead). Of course he probably should be studying or something, but where was the fun in that? The holidays were not for studying!

Anyway, since he didn’t know what to do now and there was still plenty of time before dinner, he wandered down to Alix’s room hoping she would be back by now, planning to ask her for a sensible game of chess or another turn at the electric guitar or something. Maybe he could even hang out with the cobra for once, though the ridiculous heat and humidity of Alix’s room would probably be too much. How did she even survive in there? Okay, she did really care about that snake, but still, it seemed a bit much…

He knocked on the door and a few seconds later she opened it.

“Oh hey Kim, what’s up?”

He couldn’t even reply. She was… she was wearing a … _what?_

“Uh, hello? You there?” She waved a hand in front of his face. He took a tiny step backwards. That thing… it didn’t even cover her whole top half? Like some kind of tank top that was half cut away… and he already knew how he felt about tank tops…

Wrenching his gaze away, he managed to get his brain to work enough to say, “What the heck is that thing?”

“What thing?”

“ _That thing!_ ” Taking another tiny step back he awkwardly gestured at her. He tried not to look, but… whoops. He looked. And those were definitely muscles. Since when did she have abs? He hadn’t even realized it was possible for girls to have abs!

“Oh, this!” she laughed. “Your country is sporty, isn’t it? Do they not have sports bras?”

Oh… a sports bra. It wasn’t like he would have recognized it, he had never seen one in real life before. He gave a vague kind of shrug.

“Well they’re pretty convenient I guess,” she continued, still grinning lots, as if she found it funny somehow. “And it kinda works like a top, since I didn’t want to bother wearing a proper top right now since I’m pretty hot…”

Hot. Yep, that sounded right. Really, really hot.

“…and honestly, I never wear normal bras, they’re annoying. And it’s not like I need it anyway, considering I’m flatter than a sheet of paper. Hell, even you need one more than I do!” She laughed again. “So yeah, what’s up? What did you want?”

Why was he here? He couldn’t even remember now. His brain seemed to be yelling the words “SPORTS BRA” at him on repeat. It was taking up all his self-restraint not to look at that thing again.

“Yo, if you’re not gonna say anything–”

“Did you beat your record?” he blurted out.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I did actually, by like half a second. You’ll never catch up with me at the rate I’m improving!”

“Okay cool… um… I think I’m gonna go now…”

“Already? Fair enough… I guess I’ll see you at dinner?”

“Yep…”

He started backing away slowly. She gave him a slightly concerned look and then closed the door. As soon as it was shut he turned around and ran.

 

Back in his own room he paced around, trying to distract his mind, but it just kept going back to Alix’s sports bra. No! She was his friend, and of course he liked her, but could he seriously not think about something else? About school, snakes, skating, studying, Max, Adrien – anything! But his brain just simply would not cooperate. Nor would his heart, considering how stupidly fast it was beating.

He went and turned on the radio, hoping maybe a bit of music would distract him. The song that was playing was some kind of genre he had never heard before with instruments that sounded completely unreal, and the words must have been in Arabic since he didn’t understand them. Unfortunately it did not distract him at all.

Flopping down on the bed, he took a deep breath and tried to settle himself. Okay, fine. It made sense that he thought she looked cute in a sports bra. He had a crush on her, after all. Sure, so he had never felt quite as weird about it as this. But hopefully that would go away soon.

Maybe he should have been less of an idiot around her though. Why didn’t he say something? What if he had complimented her about it? No, that would be creepy… Perhaps he should have asked her for that winter party kiss now? But no, what if that was creepy too? What if the reason she hadn’t yet brought it up was because she didn’t want to? He didn’t want her to feel guilted into kissing him when she didn’t want to, that would be downright mean.

But then again, if she did want to kiss him, he would totally be fine with that. She could do whatever she wanted, he didn’t even mind. Absolutely _anything_. If she wanted to kiss him, or take him out skating again, or take him out for a romantic dinner, or be his sweetheart… or pin him to the wall and make out with him for so long he couldn’t even think–

Whoa, where did THAT come from?

He pulled his shirt up to cover his face, feeling rather embarrassed. Okay, okay, fine. He wanted her to make out with him all of a sudden. He wanted it a lot. And he wanted to see her in that sports bra again. So much that he felt feverish just thinking about it.

Oh boy… he was in way too deep, wasn’t he?

He grabbed a pillow and stuffed his face into it, unable to stop his mind from being flooded by the most stupid, self-indulgent daydreams. He just wanted to hold her close, run his fingers through her hair… feel her whisper in his ear and plant trails of hot kisses down his neck… put his hands on the bare skin on her back, reach up and unclip the…

Unclip??? Untie??? Unhook??? He had no idea how sports bras worked. It didn’t even matter. He hugged the pillow tight, feeling shivers run up his spine and not bothering to fight it. He wasn’t even sure if he _wanted_ to fight it. This was the first time he had ever felt like this, despite having had crushes on other people before. The only difference he could think of this time was that he knew Alix very well and they had been close friends for a long time – did that explain it?

He had no idea how he was ever going to be able to speak to her again now, especially since his thoughts just kept getting more and more intimate, leaving him drenched in sweat and shivering and still wanting more… Was he going crazy? He had no idea. He didn’t even know how long he lay there for, clutching the pillow, the growing fuzzy feeling in his chest making him feel so dizzy and short of breath he couldn’t even remember where he was… The only thing he could think about was… that… darn… sports… bra…

 

There was a knock on the door. He opened his eyes, realizing he must have fallen asleep. His mind was still clouded with hazy remnants of dreams – _wow_ , those had been some rather interesting dreams. It made his face heat up to near boiling point just thinking about them…

He threw the pillow aside and stood up, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. According to the clock it would be dinnertime soon. Oh wait, did that mean it was Alix knocking at his door? It must be, it couldn’t be anyone else.

Oh no… he couldn’t face her right now. Not at this moment. He’d probably just swoon so hard he would faint on the spot or burst into tears or end up leaping out of the window, something stupid like that. He really didn’t trust his instincts.

…But then again, his instincts were telling him that two could play at the “no shirt on” game. And that he should totally take his shirt off before answering the door.

Wait, no, that was a stupid idea! Yeah, he was athletic, fit, a full eight pack to show off, but the air conditioning was on in here so he shouldn’t be feeling as hot as he was feeling and it would be really obvious what he was doing and–

There was another knock on the door. Panicking and definitely not thinking straight, Kim pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the room. He ran towards the door and opened it to see…

_MAX?!_

“Oh – Max! What are you doing here, dude?”

Max was staring up at him, wide-eyed. “I… uh… I just… quick visit… t-trade shipments… thought I would s-say h-hello to y-you…” He seemed to be in shock over something and his face was quickly turning a deep shade of magenta.

“Well it’s good to see you, are you staying for dinner?” Kim asked. “Please say you are.”

“Y-yes…” Max suddenly looked down and covered the lower half of his face with both hands.

“What’s up Max?” He really didn’t look too well all of a sudden. Kim leaned forwards and held his shoulders, looking right into his eyes. “Bro, are you okay? Is something wrong?”

Max lifted his fingers for a second to reveal a trickle of blood flowing down his face. Oh – it was just a nosebleed then?

“D-don’t worry,” Max stammered. “I’m gay– GOOD! I’m good! I uh… g-gotta… I gotta go…” He turned and sprinted down the corridor and out of sight.

Huh… that was weird. Kim guessed he probably wasn’t feeling very well or something. Anyway, what did “gay” mean? He had heard that word a few times now but he didn’t know. Maybe he would have to ask someone about it. He closed the door and put his shirt back on. It was probably time to get ready for dinner anyway.

 

Dinner that evening was certainly a very awkward affair. Max wasn’t leaving until afterwards but he still seemed to be unwell, and Kim himself just refused to look at Alix at all and barely spoke to her. Luckily he wasn’t feeling quite as overwhelmed as he had been earlier, but he still did feel more weird than was comfortable.

“Did I miss something?” Jalil asked, looking between the three of them. “Usually you lot never shut up but this time you’re being so quiet!”

Alix started laughing. “Oh I don’t know what’s up with Max but I know about Kim… it’s kinda funny actually…”

Kim lowered his head and stared at his food. Her laughter was bringing up all sorts of bubbly feelings and this was definitely not the time for it.

“Oh come on dude, it was just a sports bra!” she said, though she was still grinning. “I know I’m a tomboy but like… did you just forget I have boobs or something? Okay I sometimes forget that myself to be fair…”

“How about we not talk about that at the dinner table?” said Jalil.

“Oh you’re right, sorry, I suppose I should talk about something more appropriate for mealtime discussion. Such as, my stomach really hurts because I’m on my period and I’m covering up for it with stupid crappy humour…”

No one even bothered trying to censor her this time.

After dinner Kim said a quick goodbye to Max, then went straight back to his room, not wanting to speak to anyone. He grabbed all the magnetic darts and threw them one by one at the dartboard. Most missed completely. Of course… he was too distracted to do anything properly. Picking them up, he tried again, forcing his mind to focus.

There was a knock at his door. No, please say that wasn’t Alix, he really was not feeling prepared enough to deal with that again…

He reluctantly opened the door to see Jalil there, out of all people.

“Are you here to tell me off for something?” Kim asked.

“If I say no then will you let me in?”

Kim sighed and allowed him in anyway. He was probably about to get a telling off for sneaking out earlier, someone must have noticed or snitched. Anyway, Kim already felt like Jalil was his own older brother too, a somewhat overbearing protector who wouldn’t let him have any fun. That was what it had felt like over the past several days.

“Alright, how much trouble am I in?” Kim asked.

“That’s what I’m here to find out. What exactly is going on between you and my sister?”

Kim couldn’t help feeling his face heating up quicker than it ever had before. “Nothing!”

“Do you seriously expect me to believe that?”

“No, I swear, she’s honestly just my friend–”

“I don’t mind, just saying. I’m not going to stop you or anything. But you two are the most reckless, irresponsible kids I know, so you have to promise you’re not going to do anything stupid.”

Stupid? Like what?

“I’m not going to do anything,” Kim said. “I already told you, she’s just my friend.”

“Then what was all that at dinner about some sports bra incident? Sounds suspicious, if you ask me.”

“It was n-nothing…”

“Listen, there’s no point me trying to give you two idiots life lessons or anything, you won’t care. All I’m going to say is be responsible, okay?”

“Of course I’m responsible!”

“Yes, because tightrope walking 30 metres above the ground or challenging venomous cobras to races is extremely responsible and you are definitely a well-behaved, well-adjusted child.”

“I’m not a child, I’m 16, and there is nothing going on between–”

Jalil thrust a packet of something into Kim’s hand. “Just… be safe, okay? You are seriously the _worst_ possible match for my sister, I would have hoped someone like her would have a type other than your stereotypical bad boy. But fine, whatever… just be sensible, you hormonal teenage dorks.”

Kim looked down at his hand. What was in this packet? Wait a second… these were…

He chucked it across the room, horrified. “What the – I’m not going to – oh my god, _no way!_ Sheesh, just because I’m a _teenager_ , doesn’t mean I’m gonna... I’m not doing that… I mean m-maybe I… but not _now!_ Frick’s sake, Jalil, she doesn’t even know I like her yet!”

 “Oh, so you do like her?”

“Yes, fine, I like her! But you can’t tell her!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. If there’s any chance that you two won’t get together, I’m taking it. Because you would make the worst couple in history. It would be a disaster.”

“Nice to know you have so much faith in me.”

“I’m just being realistic. Oh, and you’d better not let our father find out you like her, he would not take it well. I don’t think he thinks very highly of you at the moment.”

“Yeah, well you don’t seem to either,” Kim muttered. “And where the hell did you get a packet of condoms from, anyway…”

“I stole it from the servants. Yes, see, I can be a remorseless thief too, just like you two.”

“Well I don’t need it, because that’s not happening. N-not yet.”

“Honestly I’m surprised you haven’t done it already, considering what you two are like, but fair enough. Anyway I’ve said what I wanted to so I’ll be off now – I have better things to be doing than trying to make sure two foolish, immature children don’t mess up their lives by being the careless impulsive nightmares I fear they are. See you tomorrow, Your Highness.”

He left the room before Kim could say anything else.

Jeez, what an insufferable jerk… Kim wasn’t _that_ reckless, was he? Well maybe he had been once upon a time, but not so much recently! And he definitely was not going to just – just – do _that!_ He had never wanted to in his life!

Or at least, not before today... not before that stupid sports bra had to go and ruin everything. Ugh, and now he had reminded himself of it again! Why was he like this all of a sudden? Was he just growing up or something? Because it wasn’t fun. Not fun, at all. He would never even be able to look Alix in the eye again, not after today.

He grabbed a pillow and screeched into it. Why? Was?! He?!! Like?!!! This?!!!! He couldn’t even figure out what he was feeling anymore!

More than anything, he wished Max was here to vent to, maybe that would make him feel better. But Max would be back in his own kingdom by now…

Wait! That was it! Max would be in his own kingdom by now!

Kim picked up the telephone receiver that was hanging on the wall and flicked through the phone book until he found Max’s number. He punched it in and waited.

“Hello?”

“Oh Max, am I glad to hear your voice! I know you probably only just got back but I really need to talk to you about something, something stupid and weird but I just need to talk to someone and…”

“Kim, I – um, I just d-don’t feel like talking right n-now, sorry.” He sounded flustered.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk, just listen! …Uh, if that’s okay.”

“Yes, that’s fine, go ahead. I’ll l-listen.”

Kim took a deep breath and just went for it, spilling absolutely everything – how overly strict and formal this kingdom was, going skating earlier to the pond with Alix and finding out how she got that snake, seeing her in that sports bra and realizing how much he wanted her and how much it was absolutely driving him up the walls, and Jalil telling him to be responsible, and he was going to be responsible, but he just hadn’t felt like this before and he _just suddenly wanted her so much it was going to kill him–_

“Sorry, I’m rambling,” Kim said finally, once he realized he was just repeating himself. “But yeah that was what I wanted to say, I just… I just had to tell someone, and you’re the best person to talk to, I just feel so calm when talking to you, like I can actually think and sort out my problems… I do feel better I guess, so thanks for listening anyway. You’re such a great friend, seriously, I wish you were here all the time… I’d hug you through the telephone if I could, you’re the _best_ , Max, and I–”

There was the sudden sound of a sob on the other end.

“Max?” Kim said, his brain suddenly on full alert. “Are you okay? Did I say something? Ah I was going on about myself so much, I’m sorry, that was selfish of me and you didn’t want to talk anyway… Seriously Max, are you okay?”

“I’m f-fine.” He did not sound fine at all.

“Really? Do you need me to do anything? If you want to talk about it I promise I’ll shut up and listen – or if you want me to cheer you up or something–”

“It’s nothing you c-can fix but thank you anyway…” He hiccupped. “I n-need to go. Don’t worry about me. I’ll see y-you at school.”

“Max, wait–”

But Max had already hung up.

Was he okay? What was he upset about? Kim wished he could do something to help. Max had always been there for him in times of trouble, now it was his turn to do the same. But what? How could he help when he was all the way over in another country? It just wasn’t possible.


	21. The best friendship ever

Over the next few nights Alix did not get much sleep. Whenever she did, she seemed to end up having dreams that… well, they weren’t exactly nightmares, but they were somewhat haunting all the same. The worst part was that she couldn’t remember them at all when she woke up, only knowing that they unnerved her enough to make her feel on edge.

It wasn’t even the first time this had happened. Every several months she would have a few days where she just tried to stay awake as much as she could, feeling like her brain was trying to creep her out on purpose in her dreams, even sometimes when she was awake. It usually wasn’t as bad as this, though… what did it mean?

She would have tried to distract herself from it by spending more time with her friend Kim, but he didn’t seem to want to talk to her much all of a sudden. What had even happened? Had she done something wrong? Or had something happened between Kim and Max? After all, Max hadn’t seemed to be doing that great when he had come to visit. Something was definitely up with those two. With Kim she maybe could have chalked it up to him still being an idiot over the sports bra thing, which was pretty funny to her she had to admit, but what about Max then?

All the same, that sports bra thing… Kim was such a dork, honestly. If this was how flustered he got over seeing his own friend wear one, how much worse of a dork would he be if it was someone he was actually into? Like Chloé? He would probably melt on the spot! Wow, that was hilarious, though Alix felt a little bad for thinking so. If Kim had a thing for sports bras then fair enough for him. She shouldn’t laugh at that.

She did give Max a telephone call to ask him if he was alright, but he seemed perfectly fine and insisted nothing was wrong at all. That was definitely weird. If he was only acting unusual whenever Kim was around then something certainly must have happened between them. Well, it wasn’t up to her to interfere. They’d probably sort it out once they got back to school, wouldn’t they?

 

Things finally seemed to return back to normal by the end of the week, which felt much better. Or at least, things were much better while she was awake. Her dreams did not seem to be agreeing at all. But still, Kim was mostly back to his normal self and everything was much more fun. At least with him around she didn’t have to bother with going to most of the pharaoh meetings her dad usually made her attend. It felt a lot more free. Perhaps she should invite guests over more often if it meant she could get out of her annoying royal duties.

One evening after dinner she heard a knock on her door. Pulling on a top (she was not having a repeat of the sports bra incident, thank you very much) she opened it to see Kim there. Thank goodness! It seemed he was back to normal enough to be alright with making surprise visits.

“Hi Kim, what’s–”

“Can I see what a television looks like?” he asked suddenly.

“What, have you not seen one yet?”

“I mean, I’ve seen them around when they’re turned off, but I’ve never watched a movie on one or anything, and I really wanna do that before we go back to school. I’ve only ever watched movies in the cinema before. It would be pretty cool to watch them on a… a TV. That’s what you guys call it, right? TV?”

“Yeah, TV,” she said, unable to stop herself smiling. He still seemed weird over something, but that was probably just whatever was happening with him and Max, and this would be a perfect opportunity to get his mind off it. “We should have a movie night!”

“A what?”

“You know, watch a bunch of movies together while eating loads of popcorn. It’s super fun. I’ve got a TV in my room, I promise I’ll turn on the air conditioning if you want, it’ll be great!”

It would be great to be able to hang out with her friend normally for once. That was what she really wanted. Kim had been so distant lately, angsting over Max or sports bras or whatever it was, and she just missed him so much. More than she had realized she would. That might have had something to do with the fact that she had never had close friends before starting at this school, other than her pet snake and maybe her brother. Having Kim around was nice, and she wanted it back.

“Oh, um, now?” he asked, going a little red.

“Yeah, now. Well I guess I’d have to go down the kitchen and steal a bunch of popcorn first but we can always just microwave it in my room.”

He grinned. “Do you always steal stuff? Do you never, like, just _ask_ for stuff?”

“If I ask for stuff I’ll get told no. So yeah, I always steal stuff. Anyway put on some pyjamas and get comfy, I’ll go get the popcorn – see you in a few minutes!” She pushed him into the room and then ran off down the corridor towards the kitchens.

Yes, a movie night with a friend! She had always wanted to do that. Jalil occasionally sneaked in some of his university friends and had movie nights with them, or just stayed out past his curfew at their houses hanging out with them, but she’d never really had anyone to do that with. Since she had never been to a real school before or even known anyone her own age it had always made her somewhat jealous. But at least now that was going to change. Having an actual friend to mess around with… it was so awesome!

She took the route to the kitchen with the fewest sentries, looked in the pantry and found a vat of unpopped popcorn, covered it with a giant cloth to hide it and then walked back to her room.

“It’s just food for my snake,” she said to the guard at the end of the corridor, knowing full well no one would believe something so stupid, but the guard simply sighed and let her go without saying anything else.

She went into her room and put the popcorn down on the table. “Alright Kim, you start microwaving this popcorn while I set up the TV.”

“Um… how do I do that?”

“I have no idea. Just put some in and warm it for a while and hope it doesn’t catch fire or something.”

“I’ll try…”

The first bowl of popcorn ended up burnt and smouldering, with so much smoke coming out that they had to open the window to get some fresh air. The next bowl didn’t have any pieces pop at all. The third bowl finally resulted in at least some edible popcorn, so they used that setting to microwave the rest of the popcorn too, resulting in about five bowls’ worth of it. Good enough.

“So what kind of movie do you want to watch first?” Alix asked. She had picked up the television and carefully set it on the end of the bed so that they could sit leaning against the pillows to watch it.

“What sort of stuff do you have?”

“Literally anything,” she said, opening a cupboard to reveal entire shelves of video tapes. “Half of these are boring educational ones that my dad got me, how to be a stuck-up ruler and all that, we’re not watching those. But anything else.”

“Hmm… have you got any of those action movies with dinosaurs in them? Max was telling me about those and they sound good.”

“Yeah, I know the ones you mean, I have like all of them.” She pulled one of the tapes off the shelf. “Speaking of Max… do you know if he’s okay? He seemed kinda weird that last time.”

“I don’t know.” Kim pulled his knees up to his chest. “Maybe something happened in his kingdom, or maybe he was tired or something? He really didn’t seem very well, I really hope he’s okay… If something went wrong I don’t know what but I wish I could help…”

Kim was not the type to lie, so evidently whatever Max was going through, it wasn’t because of him. Or at least, not on purpose. Kim seemed to be worried about it a lot.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Alix said, pushing the tape into the television slot and then grabbing the remote and sitting against the pillows. “He’ll spring back. Anyway, he’s got you, hasn’t he? Whatever’s going on, he’ll probably talk to you about it once we’re back at school.”

“Yeah… I guess…”

Alix took a handful of popcorn from the nearest bowl and stuffed it in her mouth, only to push the bowl away a second later. “Okay that tastes gross, we definitely got something wrong there. Maybe we should have put some sugar or butter on it or something, I have no idea how popcorn works…”

“It tastes fine to me,” Kim muttered through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Then you eat it. I’m not having any of this disgusting bland stuff.”

The movie started up on the small screen, and Kim immediately gasped and scooted closer to look at it in more detail.

“You never told me it was in _colour!_ ”

“Well yeah, what did you think?”

“I thought it would be in black and white, like all the other movies!”

“Black and white movies are considered pretty old here, Kim.” For what seemed like the millionth time, Alix tried not to sound as smug as she felt. Her kingdom’s technology was so far ahead she could hardly comprehend what the other countries were missing. They didn’t even have colour movies? She remembered Max mentioning that in his presentation ages ago, but she had found it hard to believe. She had always taken things like these for granted.

They watched the movie, Kim barely even bothering to eat the popcorn since he was so preoccupied with gushing over all the special effects, how much the dinosaurs looked real, how amazing all the stunts were. It was kind of adorable really, seeing how excited this made him.

“That was the best movie I’ve ever seen,” Kim said once it was finished, his eyes shining with the same wonder as when he’d first flown in an aeroplane.

“There’s a sequel, you know.”

“Really? Can we watch it?”

“Sure – the special effects are even better in this one even if the plot is way worse.”

She put in the new movie and they watched that, Kim not even taking his eyes off the screen for a second. After that they watched yet another movie, and after that one Alix just decided to show Kim how to work the television and tape player so that he could pick the next one himself and she wouldn’t have to bother getting up.

It was quite late now, and she was getting tired… would it be worth going to sleep? Or would she just end up getting those stupid haunting dreams again, the ones that made her want to curl up in the enclosure with her snake and stay there forever without even knowing why?

Kim was here, though. Her friend. She did feel much better than usual. If he was just going to stay here watching movies all night, then perhaps it was worth trying to get some sleep. Maybe she would actually have good dreams for once if her mind subconsciously knew he was there with her.

“I’m gonna go to sleep now, you can carry on watching if you turn the volume down,” she said to him, putting the pillow down flat and curling up on it. “If you’re gonna stay here though then don’t tell my dad we had a sleepover, he’ll flip out. He thinks I’m too old for sleepovers. Which is ridiculous because you’re never too old for sleepovers, and I never really had one before anyway.”

“You never had a sleepover before?”

“Nope. Not with friends, anyway. When I was really little me and Jalil sometimes had sleepovers, before he grew up and got all boring. Well, he’s not boring, but…” She yawned. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’m too tired to think properly. Anyway, what I mean is I never had a sleepover because I never had friends.”

“Really? No friends at all?”

“No friends at all. Except Max, but I never saw him often until starting at this school. But yeah, I’m grateful to have you two as friends, and whatever… goodnight, Kim.”

She curled up a little tighter, resting her head on her arm and closing her eyes.

“Oh my gosh… that’s adorable…”

She opened her eyes a little. “What is?”

“You look like a cat, just curled up on the pillow like that! And you’re so tiny and… cute… and…” Kim was blushing and half hiding behind his hands. What a nerd.

“Alright, fine, I’m a cat,” she said, grinning and closing her eyes again, too tired to bother arguing. Adorable was not a word that was used to describe her very often, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. “Should I meow? Purr? Are you gonna stroke my hair or something?”

“Um… can I?”

“Yeah, if you want. Now shush and let me go to sleep.”

She could feel him hesitantly running his fingers over her hair, like he was worried he was going to pull it out by accident. He didn’t need to worry, it wasn’t a big deal! It felt quite relaxing, actually. She was already drifting off to sleep within a few minutes, thinking that maybe she would get good dreams tonight after all.

 

Her eyes snapped open when she felt someone poking her in the arm to wake her up. The room was dark except the TV screen, merely showing the fuzzy blank screen it did when not connected to any channel. Dreams were quickly seeping out of her mind and she tried hard to grasp onto something to remember – snakes? Was that it? Yes, it was definitely something to do with snakes… but it hadn’t been a good dream. How could it not have been? She liked snakes! What could go wrong there?

She sat up a little and saw that Kim was sitting hunched up with his knees against his chest, looking thoughtful.

“What’s the time?” she asked, trying not to yawn too much. “It can’t be morning yet…”

“It’s 4AM.”

“Then why did you wake me up?”

“I, um…” He looked almost on the verge of tears about something. “I just really wanted to ask something…”

“Go on then, what do you want?”

“Alix… are you proud of me?”

So, he was feeling insecure. Of course an overconfident guy like him would have this happen to him sometimes, it was only natural. Trying not to sound as grumpy as she felt about being woken up suddenly, she said, “Yeah, I totally am.”

“But like, why?”

Usually she was not good at this sort of thing, but being half asleep made the answers come to her easily. “You always try hard at everything and you’re improving loads, I mean Max says so all the time too, he’s gotta be right. Your school work is way better than it was back in September. So yeah, at least you try. Which is a good deal better than me.”

He still didn’t look very happy. “I guess you’re right. But… I just always get in trouble all the time. You and Max are always so awesome, and your kingdoms are awesome, and just… I’m not good at anything that matters, like being a prince, and my family and citizens probably hate it, and I… I feel like I take you and Max for granted all the time. You’re both so helpful and I’m not really a very good friend, and I’m really sorry… I’m just… not…”

“You so are a good friend,” she said sitting up properly. “In fact, you’re a _best_ friend. Yeah, you are a total idiot, but at least you know that. And it’s not like me and Max aren’t idiots too. Yeah, even Max. Trust me, we’re all idiots. The important thing is that we’re idiots who like hanging out with each other no matter what, so just… please try not to worry too much, okay? It’s not up to you to question why people care about you so just roll with it. I always feel the same way when I start overthinking stuff and like… it’s not good. Just don’t think.”

“Are you really telling me not to think? Isn’t that the opposite of what you should be telling me?”

“Yeah, I’m probably a bad influence, but whatever. Just don’t think, you’ll make yourself miserable and confused. I’ve been there. Just remember that me and Max are gonna be your best friends for life whether you think you deserve it or not.”

“Thanks… but Max seems to be…”

“It’ll pass, whatever it is. I’ve seen how much you two care about each other, there’s nothing that will come between you for long. Everyone needs time to themselves sometimes, maybe he just needs space or something, I don’t know. It’ll be fine though, I swear. And if it isn’t then you can come back and whack me over the head with my own sceptre.”

She was surprised at herself by how easy it was to comfort him. All this time she’d thought she wasn’t very good at dealing with people, but… maybe that just depended on the person. Kim was a lot like her, after all. It was much easier to be a good friend to a guy like him than anyone else. She could understand what he was feeling – it was the kind of thing she felt a lot. Not knowing if she was good enough, for her family, her country, her friends, herself, and not being able to understand why anyone could possibly be proud of her…

Kim smiled. “Okay, yeah, you’re right… thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I really don’t know why I’m overthinking all this, I usually don’t even think at all but it’s like my brain can’t stop…”

“It’s 4AM, dude, you’ll always get weirdly existential if you stay up this late. Haven’t you done it before?”

“No, I’m an athlete! I always try and get lots of sleep.”

“Huh, I always thought an idiot like you would have a sleep schedule even worse than mine. But that’s good, sleep is good.”

“Yeah, it is. Thanks for making me feel better, Alix, it really means a lot. I’m really glad we made friends.”

“So am I.”

He yawned. “I’m so tired, I think I’m actually gonna go to sleep now, though I really have to watch more movies sometime, that was awesome… Uh, should I go back to my own room, or…?”

“You’d get caught by the guards, and isn’t the point of a sleepover that you stay here? It’s a pharaoh-sized four poster double bed and I’m 4’8’’, I swear you’re not gonna squish me or anything. You can stay here.”

“Are you sure?” In the dim light he seemed to be blushing again.

“Well what else are you gonna do, sleep in the snake enclosure? On the floor? Just put the TV on the table or something and go to sleep, dude.”

“Um, okay, yeah.”

She lay down and closed her eyes again, hearing him carefully putting the TV aside to make room for how ridiculously tall he was, then feeling the mattress sink a little as he lay down on the other side.

“Goodnight, Alix,” he said quietly.

“Yeah, goodnight.”

She wasn’t sure whether or not she wanted to fall asleep again, considering that her creepy dreams were taking no notice at the presence of her friend and were continuing unchecked. It just seemed to fill her with a sense of foreboding, like some sense of impending, unavoidable doom…

No, that was stupid. She wasn’t psychic, there was no way she could predict stuff like that, and anyway nothing was going to happen. After all, she had been getting these weird feelings every few months for as long as she could even remember and nothing had ever come of them, so why would that start now? Her brain was probably just weird, that was what. She knew she should just ignore it and try and get some sleep, never mind about those dreams. Real life was more important.


	22. An unexpected message

By the end of the holidays Kim was actually looking forward to going back to school. Other than the fact that he would get to fly in an aeroplane again, he wanted to see Max and find out what was wrong. Whatever the problem was, hopefully these past few weeks would have been enough time to make him feel better, right?

It had certainly been enough time to make Kim feel better, that was for sure. At least he could talk to Alix again now, even if looking at her for longer than a few seconds made him wish she would just grab his face and kiss him breathless… There was no way he was asking for that mistletoe kiss now, though. It had been too long, it would just be awkward. The important thing was that someone as cool as her was friends with him – what more did he need?

 

After another exhilarating plane flight and a standard ocean cruise, they arrived back in the Bourgeois Empire. A carriage took them up to entrance of the school – where another carriage was waiting for Kim, and one that looked very familiar indeed.

“Hey, that’s my carriage from home,” he muttered, walking over to the guard at the door, someone he recognized seeing around his palace back in his own kingdom. “Um… what are you doing here?”

The guard gave a quick bow. “Your Highness, your parents have sent us here to bring you back from school. I have a letter from them right here.”

Kim grabbed the letter and skimmed over the first few paragraphs. His parents said they wanted to pull him out of school, there was that trouble with the Agreste Empire which was getting worse that Kim did not take seriously, and that he kept not coming back home for the holidays and it was better for a troublemaker like him to just stay where they could keep an eye on him…

“There’s no way I’m going home now,” he said, giving the letter back. “No chance. Definitely not. And you can’t make me. So just tell my parents I’ll come back home for the summer holidays, I promise, okay?”

“Apologies, Your Highness, but there is nothing we can do.” The guard looked a little nervous. “Your parents outrank you and we must obey their orders. They have told us that either you agree to come home, in which case we will give you a little time and help to get everything from your accommodation here and put it into the carriage, or otherwise if you resist we will simply have to pick you up and take you back immediately while everything remains here.”

Kim turned to Alix, who was sitting on a suitcase with her snake wrapped around her headdress. “Alix, can they do that? It’s not fair, is it?”

She shrugged. “No idea. I mean, I want you to stay at school too, but if your parents say you’ll get forcefully tossed into a carriage and taken back home anyway then… Hey, do you want me to threaten your guards with my snake or something?”

“No, no, don’t do that! That’s fine, you don’t need to like… threaten to kill anyone…” He turned back to the guard. “Surely my parents didn’t give you a time limit, did they? You could technically just wait here until the summer holidays start and take me back home then, right?”

“Unfortunately not, You Highness,” the guard replied, looking ever more dejected. “Our orders were to bring you back immediately. We know you don’t want to, we just… we’re following orders. We don’t want you to be punished. And we don’t want to be punished either.”

What could he do? He didn’t want the guards to be punished if they were just trying to do their job. But how could he go back home now? That was the last thing he wanted!

“Kim, I have an idea,” Alix said, rummaging around in one of the suitcases for something. She pulled out a little book. “Your country’s gotta have at least _one_ telephone, right? I’ve got all the official country telephone numbers in this phonebook right here. Just use my sceptre to call up your parents and talk to them yourself.”

“Really? Oh thanks Alix, you’re a lifesaver…”

She flicked through the book until she found the right page, then dialled the number into her sceptre and handed it to Kim. “You got this.”

Kim held the sceptre up close enough to hear the little beeps that meant the phone call was going through. The last time he had used a telephone was when he had called Max up a few weeks ago, and he didn’t really want to think about that…

The phone on the other end was picked up by a government official. “Good afternoon Your Majesty, how may the kingdom of Lê Chiến help you?”

“Um, it’s actually Prince Kim here,” Kim said, trying not to stutter. Talking on a phone was kind of stressful when he didn’t know the person on the other side. “Pharaoh Alix just lent me her phone sceptre thing because um… I really need to talk to my parents. Like, right now. Are they around?”

“Ah, Your Highness, they have been waiting eagerly to hear from you, though they were expecting a letter rather than a telephone call. I am afraid they are unavailable right now, having to oversee the May festival arrangements.”

“Are you sure? It’s, uh, kinda urgent.”

“Hmm. The Queen-Consort is available instead, would it be possible that I could instead pass the phone call onto her? It would be more practical.”

The Queen-Consort? As in, his grandmother?

“That’s better than nothing,” Kim said.

“Excellent. Please hold on for a few minutes, I will arrange for her to talk to you.”

“Thanks.”

There were a few minutes of silence on the other end. Kim tapped his fingers on the edge of the sceptre impatiently, wishing he could just get this over with. Finally, a very familiar voice spoke.

“Hello, Kim, it’s good to hear from you!”

It was good to hear her, too. He hadn’t realized how much he missed his grandma, considering how long he had been away for.

“Bà, I need your help,” he said quickly. “My parents aren’t letting me stay at school, they’ve sent a carriage here to get me and everything. But I just feel like this is unfair!”

“They’re worried about you, Kim. We’ve barely heard from you at all.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I probably should have sent more letters.”

“It’s alright, you must have been very busy. But your parents have sent for you because they feel that the school isn’t good for you, and that you’d be much better off back at home. They have explained why in their letters.”

Kim took a deep breath, trying to sort out his thoughts before saying them. “Okay, I can see why they think that. I know I got detentions, and I joined a club that Adrien goes to, all of that. But those are just minor things compared to how _good_ this school has been for me! I promise, I’ve been improving so much!”

“Really? In what ways?”

“My grades have improved a lot because I really am trying hard with my schoolwork, getting extra tutoring and everything. And I haven’t misbehaved for ages, I swear. I know I got those detentions for starting a food fight but that was an accident, and it was all the way back in January. I’m doing fine now.”

“I see.”

“And I love it here so much, I’m really enjoying myself. I’ve made such great friends here and I feel like it’s unfair of my parents to force me to leave that without giving me any notice.”

“That’s understandable. But you realize that you haven’t come home during any of the holidays, don’t you? Despite being specifically asked to?”

“I know, I’m really sorry. But I was busy visiting other kingdoms and learning all about them – the only reason I can speak to you on the phone about this now is because I’m best friends with the pharaoh of Kubdel and she let me borrow her telephone! And getting to see other places and cultures has been such an eye-opener for me, I’ve learned so much more by travelling than I ever could have sitting back home. It’ll make me a better leader. You’ll see the difference when I come back home for summer, you’ll see how much better I am. Just… please let me stay here for now.”

She was silent for a few moments, before sighing and saying, “Well, you’ve convinced me. I will have a talk to your parents and persuade them to let you stay. After all, you do actually sound much improved, you know? Calmly debating your point with rational thought, rather than your usual hot-headed, impulsive behaviour. Clearly being at school has made you much more mature and thoughtful. I’ll do what I can.”

Kim breathed a sigh of relief, a smile spreading over his face. “Thank you, thank you so much!”

“That’s quite alright. I will speak to your parents immediately and then get someone to call the school telephone to let them know when a decision has been made. Meanwhile just sit tight. Everything will be fine, alright? Goodbye, Kim, it was good to speak to you again.”

“Bye.”

He hung up and handed the sceptre back to Alix.

“So you’re staying here?” she asked.

“Hopefully. My grandma has to get my parents to agree, but… they’ll probably listen to her. Until then I just have to wait. I guess meanwhile you can go to your room and unpack…”

“Or, I could just stay here and we could play a game of chess while you’re waiting,” she said, pulling a chessboard out of one of the suitcases. “You’d get bored otherwise, you know you would.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks.”

They sat down beside the carriage and began a game of chess.

 

It wasn’t too long before a messenger arrived from Duke Damocles’s office, interrupting the chess game – which was probably a good thing, since both of them were cheating rather blatantly.

“Your Highness,” the messenger said, bowing, “the school has just received a telephone call from your parents to officially inform us that they have reconsidered their decision to pull you out of school, and you have been allowed to stay.”

“Yes, thank you so much!” Kim leapt to his feet, knocking aside a bunch of chess pieces in his enthusiasm.

“However, the reasons are somewhat unfortunate. They have just received word of more violent raids at the border between Lê Chiến and the part of land that Agreste occupies, so it may in fact not be safe for you to return home at the moment, at least until hostilities die down. The carriage guards have been instructed to stay here until further notice.”

“Wait, it’s not safe?” His heart sank all of a sudden. “And that’s why they want me to stay at school?”

“Yes. The only way for you to return home would take you through Agreste territory, and as prince of Lê Chiến, it could be dangerous considering the very delicate position… well… we would want to avoid any hostage-taking or unnecessary danger to you at all costs…”

“Yeah, fine, thanks for telling me.” Kim crossed his arms and turned away. He knew some of the border areas had been considered lawless in the past, but that was such a long time ago! He had travelled a lot in the past few years and there had never been any problems. Why were things happening now…?

 

After getting settled back into his dorm, Kim immediately went to go see Max, feeling somewhat apprehensive. He knocked on the door and waited. Max would be back already, right? Surely he would.

“Oh, hello Kim!” Max said brightly, opening the door. “Nice to see you again! Come on in!”

Kim entered the room, bewildered. Max seemed much more cheerful this time. That was a good thing, but then what had he been upset about? Would it be okay to ask, or would it be unfair to bring up something that maybe Max didn’t want to talk about?

“Max, you look well,” Kim said, hoping that didn’t sound too stupid. “Uh, much better than last time. And you sound much better too.”

“Oh yes, don’t worry about that. It was nothing. Just something silly, but it doesn’t matter.”

“Well I’m really happy you’re feeling better. Though if you ever wanna talk about something then you totally can. But if you don’t want to then you don’t have to.”

“Kim, that’s very kind of you,” Max said. “Anyway, how were your holidays? I didn’t really get to speak to you much.”

 _Yes, because you ran off suddenly with a nosebleed and then didn’t seem to be very well and I didn’t want to push it…_ Kim kept his thoughts to himself just shrugged. “Yeah, it was cool. I got to see movies on a television, and I’m not so scared of the snake anymore, and I’m pretty sure Jalil thinks I’m at least semi-okay now since I didn’t make a move on Alix, so…”

“You didn’t? When you spoke to me on the phone you very much sounded like you were going to.”

Kim blushed, trying hard not to think about that day too much. “I, uh… it wasn’t me being a wimp or anything, I just… I felt like a creep, okay? She’s my best friend and I don’t want to make things weird. And anyway I don’t think her snake approves.”

“What? Her _snake?_ I thought you said Jalil was the one who didn’t approve!”

“Oh yeah, him too. But I mean, the only time I was actually going to ask about the mistletoe kiss, the snake just suddenly started slithering up my arm, like it was warning me not to. And then after the rest of that day, I just decided… I’m not even gonna ask her. Not now it’s been so long. Maybe this was what Master Fu meant about not getting my hopes up.”

“Mmm, perhaps.”

“Oh, and did you know I almost got sent back home just now?” Kim said quickly, changing the subject. “My parents sent a carriage here to pick me up and everything! But I used Alix’s sceptre to call up my family and everything got sorted out, so I’m staying here for now… but there are problems at the borders of my kingdom anyway, so that’s the real reason they’re letting me stay, not because I want to…”

“Oh Kim… I’m sure when your parents next see you they’ll realize how good this school has been for you, and they’ll let you come here next year too. And let me guess, are these border problems with Agreste?”

“Yep.”

Max sighed. “That really is unfortunate. Hopefully it’ll clear up soon.”

“Max, why doesn’t your country ever have border problems? Or Alix’s?”

“Kanté and Kubdel both have excellent relations with all the neighbouring countries, that’s why. Lê Chiến has good relations with most of its neighbours, just not Agreste, which happens to be a rather large, influential empire. That certainly makes it much more complicated to deal with.”

“I swear I’ll fix this someday,” Kim said. “I will. Me and Adrien will fix it together.”

“That’s the spirit. I know you two will make excellent leaders one day.”

“Thanks, Max. Anyway I’m gonna go have some dinner or something, I’m used to eating dinner earlier because of the time zone differences. Are you coming too?”

“No thanks, I had a rather heavy lunch so I’ll go down a bit later. See you tomorrow in class, though.”

“Yeah, see you!”

Kim left the room, feeling much relieved that Max was okay now. Evidently whatever it was that had made him upset, it wasn’t bothering him anymore. Thank goodness.

 

Back in his room, Max felt much relieved too. Having several weeks out of contact with Kim seemed to have worked wonders. It wasn’t that he didn’t love him anymore, because he very much did, but it just seemed to be… what was the word…

_Dormant._

As if he could deal with it much better now, almost forgetting that these feelings were there sometimes. When he did allow himself to think about what he felt for Kim, that was when it all came flooding back, like a painful tidal wave… but at least it wasn’t like that all the time. If he just didn’t think about it, it was alright. He was perfectly content with being Kim’s best friend and wingman, just as he had always been.

That being said, if there ever did come a day when Kim fell for him in return, he knew he wouldn’t even need to think twice. The feelings would come back full force. And as much as he reminded himself that it would probably never happen, he couldn’t help holding out a little hope in his heart.

Was that selfish? He was trying not to be. But there was no real right or wrong answer, was there? Things like this weren’t logical, there was no way to ever be certain about anything. Perhaps he wasn’t being selfish by merely crushing on his best friend from afar, not doing anything about it, trying to just forget about it and move on…

No, he was not being selfish. He was just being human.


	23. Marchesa Lila

At some point during the month of May, a change occurred in the royal class. The previous Viceroy of the Rossi City-State had passed away, and in his place the father of one of the noble class was appointed to take the role. This noble, Lila, was a mere “Marchesa” and was not descended from royalty, but through some rule loopholes she was allowed to move into the royal class due to her father’s new position.

“A viceroy is a representative of a nation’s sovereign monarch despite being appointed the role rather than inheriting it,” she told the class during her introduction on her first day, “and therefore, being the daughter of a provisional monarch, that makes me a rather unusual, unique type of princess. My formal title is still marchesa, though. I’m just special.”

Lila looked around the room at everyone watching her, trying to size them all up in her mind. She already knew Alya, of course – she was part of her spy ring. She recognized most of the others too since the nobility had all been given special classes on recognizing the royal class members and how to properly respect them. It would be so exciting to _be_ one of them instead now. Everyone would look up to her.

Her eyes went straight to Imperial Prince Adrien, sitting near the front, watching with polite interest. Ah yes, he was the highest ranked out of all the boys here, wasn’t he? Not to mention rather stunning in looks. All the nobility were always secretly fawning over him. If Lila could just get him to fall for her, well, wouldn’t that make her the absolute best? Then no one would judge her for being out of place, a noble amongst royals. She would really have earned her spot.

As soon as the lesson was over, she went directly to Adrien, curtseying and then gently taking his arm in her hand.

“It’s ever so nice to meet you, Your Imperial Highness,” she gushed. “May I just call you Adrien?”

“Oh, um, of course!” Adrien replied, smiling nervously. “Nice to meet you too, Lila.”

“I’ve heard so many tales of your politeness and how wonderful you are.”

“Really? Thank you, I had no idea–”

“In fact, back in Rossi being polite is a very respected trait. That’s why my father was chosen to rule – he’s ever so polite. I’m trying to be the same way so I can make a great leader too one day.”

She stepped a little closer and leaned forward, hoping he would be able to smell her perfume.

“So Adrien, could you show me around? I already know what the noble areas of the school look like, of course, but now I want to see the royal areas too. I especially wore my most regal dress to make sure I fit in. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”

Giggling, she held out the skirt of her dress so that the intricate design was in full show. Adrien took a small step back and gave her a thumbs up.

“Yes, that’s a nice dress,” he said. “And, uh, I would absolutely love to show you around, but…”

“I know, I know, your father wouldn’t approve of you associating with a member of nobility, would he?”

“It’s not that, I don’t mind that at all! It’s just that I have some homework I need to catch up on so I was planning to go to the library first and do that, though of course I can show you around later if you like.”

“Why don’t I just come to the library with you? Two people working on homework together would be much better than one.”

“Oh, um, alright!”

Lila linked her arm up with Adrien’s and let him lead her to the library, where he set out all his papers and began working.

Hmm… they were alone in here, weren’t they? It certainly seemed like that. Perhaps now would be a good time to make a move. After all, that was the sort of thing Lila was good at – flirting, getting people to like her, falling under her charismatic spell.

“So, since you’re royalty, are you betrothed to anyone yet?” she asked, placing her hand over his and inching her chair a little closer. She knew perfectly well that these days people didn’t tend to get betrothed so young, royalty or not, or at least they would have some say in it. But it was a good way to broach the subject.

“Not exactly,” Adrien said, leaning away just a tad.

“What do you mean, not exactly? Is there someone you’re under pressure to end up with?”

He sighed. “Kind of. I mean… it’s not really a big deal. But Bourgeois is the other big empire in the world, so a lot of people expect that… Chloé and I… well…”

“You know, a girl doesn’t have to rule a big empire to be considered an ideal match.” Lila batted her eyelashes at him and put on her most winning smile. “Even smaller countries can be wealthy. Even _city-states_ can be wealthy.”

Yes, she was being incredibly obvious. People always called her a fast-mover. But at least it tended to work! How were you ever going to get anywhere with anyone unless you put yourself out there and really went for it?

“It’s not wealth I’m after,” Adrien said. He rested his head on his hands and gazed off into the distance. “If I’m going to get engaged to someone, I’d want it to be someone I like. Someone who I get along with, can call a friend, who makes me happy to spend time with…”

Lila frowned – Adrien was definitely thinking about someone in particular, but who? Who in the class could he have possibly fallen in love with?

Never mind. She would just have to work harder to win him over, that was all. If she spent as much time with him as possible, surely that would bring him around.

 

Kim soon received a letter from home. How could that be possible? Weren’t there border problems preventing mail from getting through? He had a read of it, skimming over the boring bits.

_We have sent this letter by messenger pigeon to the postal centre in Cheng, where it will go by traditional mail to the school._

Oh, that explained it then.

_Speaking of Cheng, if the situation here does not improve by the time your summer holidays begin, you are to go and stay with Princess Marinette’s family as their guest. We have already corresponded with them and they have accepted that this would be a good idea. You will be staying in the royal palace in Cheng, rather than Dupain, as it is much closer to Lê Chiến. This way if things improve while you are there then it will be easier for you to return home quickly, and we will be able to keep in touch relatively easily too._

Not bothering to read the rest, Kim grabbed the letter and rushed out of his room, heading straight for Marinette’s dorm. It appeared she had the same idea as they ran into each other halfway.

“I might be staying at yours for the summer!” Kim said excitedly, waving the letter at her.

“I know, my parents just told me too!” she squealed, holding up her own letter. “I’m so happy!”

“I know, right? How fun it this gonna be? I _love_ visiting Cheng, your parents are awesome – you guys are like a second family!”

“That’s exactly what I thought!”

“I can’t wait!”

Marinette suddenly cleared her throat, looking a lot more serious. “But I do hope whatever the situation is in your country, it clears up soon. I would hate for there to be any danger or permanent problems, and I’ve heard that you haven’t been home in a while so you must be missing it…”

“Oh, yeah…” Kim had forgotten about that in his enthusiasm. “I can’t get home because the only routes go through Agreste territory, and apparently those areas are really unsafe right now for some reason. Something to do with rising hostilities. I don’t know, no one ever really tells me anything properly.”

“I hope it gets sorted out soon. I mean, I am very excited that you’ll be coming to stay, but the stability of your kingdom is more important than that.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

Kim had a quick look at the rest of the letter, but there didn’t seem to be anything of interest. All of a sudden it was hitting him how much he did miss his kingdom – it wasn’t perfect, but it was home, and it had been months and months since he had been there. What if the hostilities took a long time to clear up? What if he couldn’t go back for years?

Marinette gave him a poke in the arm, and he saw that she was smiling up at him reassuringly. “You know, we haven’t hung out in a while. What do you say we have a tennis match?”

Oh, classic Marinette. She always knew how to make him feel better. A tennis match against his old friend would be so much fun.

“Good idea, let’s go!”

 

Over the course of that week, Lila had somewhat managed to figure out that Adrien was very much crushing on Marinette, who seemed to like him back, though with both of them blissfully unaware of the other’s feelings. Lila would have to get Adrien to fall for her as quick as possible before he or Marinette made a move. At least she had been talking to him so much this week, surely he had to like her at least a little bit by now. After all, he was definitely interested in girls. This would not be an impossible task.

“Adrien, I have to ask you something,” she said to him one day, sitting with him outside on the bench by the moat. It was a bright sunny day, with flowers blooming everywhere, and she had managed to get Nino to go somewhere else so that it was just her and Adrien alone.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “What is it?”

“I’m new here and I always wondered whether I could fit in, despite being from the noble class… do you think I fit in?”

“Of course you do!” His tone sounded rather surprised. “Lila, you fit in very well indeed! Everyone loves you.”

Obviously they did, she had made sure of that. Everyone in the class had been enthralled by her tales of life on the lavish, luxurious island of Rossi, even though she may have spun some of her stories a little more than could be considered truthful. Especially since she had never actually spent much time in Rossi, more often being back in the Marca Volpina on the Italian mainland. It didn’t matter, no one would ever find out.

“And what do you think of me?” she asked, lowering her voice to a sultry whisper. “Do you like me?”

He turned to face her, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Yes, of course I like you, Lila. You’re so nice, and you’ve always made sure to chat with me a lot and spend time with me… I guess it’s like having a sister.”

That was so nice of him. He was ever so sweet, and–

Wait, what? A _sister?_ How could he possibly…?

“Lila, are you okay?” he asked, seeing the tears start spilling out of her eyes suddenly.

“You said that on purpose!” she snapped, enraged. “You knew perfectly well I’ve been hitting on you this entire time, you just never bothered to tell me outright that you don’t love me! You’d rather just break my heart by telling me I’m like a sister, because you don’t have the guts to do it properly! Isn’t that right, Adrien?”

The words came gushing out before she could stop them. It always made her so irrationally upset when people didn’t love her the way she wanted them to, and she could never figure out why, nor could she control it. She didn’t want to lash out at Adrien like this, but for now she couldn’t stop herself.

“Um… well… okay that’s true, but…” Adrien was looking embarrassed.

Lila let out a sob, turning away. “I thought we had something special! We’ve been on so many romantic dates this week together!”

“What? Romantic dates? I was just being friendly!”

“Well don’t bother to lead me on next time. Just _forget about it!_ ” She stood up and ran off, ignoring Adrien calling after her.

What could she do now? She had spent all that time and effort courting Adrien, just to have him state his disinterest in her upfront. It was so humiliating! She was supposed to be _good_ at getting people to fall in love with her, that was her speciality! How could she have failed on such a dashing imperial prince like him?

Still in a half fit of rage, she made a rather rash decision. The Agreste Empire was enemies with Lê Chiến, right? In that case she would go for Prince Kim instead. After all, she had almost caught the guy under the mistletoe back at the winter party that one time, though she had managed to brush it off when he said that he was waiting for “someone else”. It was fairly obvious that “someone else” was the tiny little pharaoh he spent a lot of time with, but Lila could tell that wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, especially since said pharaoh was too oblivious to see past her own nose.

No, it would hopefully be easy to snag a brainless, athletic pretty boy like Kim. And it would be the perfect way to get over Adrien.


	24. Another arm wrestle?

The weather was warm enough for Kim to sit outside at the fountain, doing his homework on the ground with the calming sound of water to focus his mind. Max was busy tutoring someone else at the moment so Kim was on his own. It felt kind of strange doing his homework without Max there to help if he needed it, even though he could usually do it by himself these days. Perhaps he was just getting too used to Max’s company. In any case, it felt somewhat harder to concentrate without Max, though he tried his best.

“Hello, Kim.”

He looked up to see Marchesa Lila walking towards him, a bright orange parasol in hand to protect her from the sun.

“Oh, hey Lila,” he muttered, then went back to working on his homework.

“I was just out here for a walk,” she said, striding right up to him and looking down at him with those enticing green eyes of hers. “I didn’t realize you would be here too, what a coincidence! This really is a lovely fountain, though. What a beautiful, romantic setting.”

Kim was very tempted to ask why she was very clearly hitting on him when he thought she was interested in Adrien instead, but he stopped himself. Lila always hit on everyone, it probably didn’t mean anything. He gave her a quick smile then tried to get back to his homework again.

“A day like this is too good for wasting on work,” she simpered, putting the tip of her parasol down on the sheet of paper and dragging it aside. “Would you like to join me on my walk?”

“Um, no thanks. I have to get this homework done, then I’ve got a football match, and later I was gonna go skating with Alix…”

Lila’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “So… you’re not afraid of her snake?”

“What? Pffff, no way, I’m not scared of snakes. Her snake totally loves me. We’re besties.”

“I’m not scared of snakes either.” Lila flipped her long hair over her shoulder. “My country has venomous cobras too, I’ve tamed them with my bare hands. And I like skating too, you know, I’m a real expert at it. Unfortunately I can’t show you because I recently hurt my foot in a dangerous stunt so my doctor said not to, so I left my rollerskates back in Rossi. Have you been there? You should visit, it’s iconic. The rich, powerful centre of the trade world.”

What? No, none of that could be right, surely. Kim remembered Max teaching him about half the things she just mentioned and… no, there was no way. If she was lying just to get his attention, well, she must have thought he knew nothing about global affairs whatsoever.

“Italia doesn’t have cobras,” he said. “Max said the only venomous snakes in Italia are vipers. And rollerskates are patented in Kubdel, which doesn’t trade with Italia so if you even have skates they must be illegal or directly from when you’ve visited, both of which are hard for a marquise. And Rossi only trades with the Italian mainland and doesn’t have much political power, though I guess it’s kinda wealthy compared to surrounding countries…”

He was impressed at himself by how easily he could recall these facts. Max really must have done a great job at tutoring, that was for sure.

Lila, on the other hand, looked as far from impressed as possible.

“Are you trying to make me look bad or something? I was just trying to be friendly!”

“Huh? No, nothing like that, I was just confused why you were lying…”

“I wasn’t lying!” she huffed, stomping her foot. “How _dare_ you accuse me of being a liar? Because I’m not!”

“Then I guess you were just mistaken or something?”

“No, I know what I’m talking about! I’m much smarter than you, and–”

She stopped and took a deep breath, cooling her temper a little.

“Alright, fine, I might have been exaggerating a bit. I just wanted to have a conversation with you, that was all. I didn’t realize you were just as much of a swot as that Max guy.”

“Max is way smarter than me,” Kim said. “But uh… I’m guessing all the other stuff you’ve told everyone about Rossi this week isn’t true either, is it?”

“It’s _kind of_ true!”

That was probably a lie too. “Lila, I won’t tell anyone you lied. I show off all the time too, it’s fine. But maybe tone it down a bit? If you keep lying then everyone else will realize too, and I don’t think they’d mind much either but someone like Chloé might, and she won’t be happy about that, especially since you’re not technically royalty… So if you want to make friends then probably stop making stuff up, it’ll be easier. I’ll be your friend if you want.”

“Thank you, Kim. But I don’t think I’m interested in being friends with someone who thinks of me as a liar and is going to be judging everything I say. I’ll keep your advice in mind, though. Have fun with your… _homework_.”

She whirled round and marched off.

Was she upset with him? Was she really going to stop lying? It hurt a little that she had assumed he would be so easy to lie to, and that she had been surprised that he wasn’t just some airhead who didn’t know anything. Was that really how people saw him?

It was probably how they saw him compared with Max, anyway. Anyone was an airhead in comparison with Max. Kim would just have to work harder to show everyone that there was more to him than sportiness and challenges, that was all.

As for Lila, he really had wanted to make friends with her – he knew perfectly well what it was like to want to show off in front of new people to make sure they liked you. But outright lying was something else entirely! He didn’t want a friendship based on lies. And if she didn’t want a friendship based on truth, then it probably wasn’t ever going to happen.

Poor girl… hopefully she would find someone who liked her for who she actually was, and she wouldn’t feel the need to lie to them. Everyone deserved someone to be their true self with.

 

The summer gala was quickly drawing nearer, and the end of the school year with it. It was going to be an informal, optional event, held in the large open square.

“I’m not going to this one either,” Alix said to Kim and Max after the lesson where they had been told the details about it. “If everyone’s at the gala then there’ll be no one around to tell me off or give me detention for doing all the stuff I’ve always wanted to do at this school.”

“What kind of stuff?” Max asked, looking rather sternly at her. “It’s not illegal, is it?”

“Nah, just stuff like skating down the stair railings and climbing those huge trees near the perimeter.”

“You will break your neck and die.”

“Jeez Max, who replaced you with Jalil? I’ll be fine! It’ll be way more fun than some stupid social event, you know I hate stuff like that. Anyway, if you guys are worried I’ll die then you are free to join me and supervise. As long as you don’t tell the teachers or anything.”

“I’m going to the gala, but Kim can keep you company,” Max said, giving Kim a pointed look.

“Fine. If he can keep up with me, that is.”

“Of course I can keep up!” Kim said. “We should have a race – who can climb the tree the quickest. Loser has to jump from like 20 metres up.”

“Let’s reduce that to 2 metres,” Max said hastily. “Anyway Kim, I need to talk to you about something, that thing to do with that homework thing, come on…”

Without waiting, Max grabbed Kim’s arm and pulled him away.

“What homework thing?” Kim asked once they had stopped.

“That was just an excuse to get you away, I need to say something without Alix being here. Listen – it’s been a long time, I’m getting sick of being wingman if you’re not even going to do anything. You and her not going to the gala will be your chance to tell her you like her, so do it, okay?”

Kim nodded. “You’re right, I’ll totally do it this time. I promise. Thanks, Max. You’re the coolest wingman ever. But… you don’t have to go to the gala if you don’t want to, seriously, I don’t mind if you’re there with us, it’ll probably help me not be such an idiot anyway because I’m always more sensible when you’re around–”

“I’d rather not interfere,” Max muttered. “I’ve already made up my mind, I’m going to the gala. You’ll be fine on your own.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. She _must_ be on the verge of noticing you like her – you’ve asked her for a kiss more than once, you played her a romantic ballad on the day of the Cupid Festival, you were rather obvious about the sports bra incident, everyone else in the class has noticed already… Her obliviousness has to have a limit. And of course, if you just tell her outright, you’ll bypass that problem entirely.”

Kim sighed. “Yeah, I know. It’s just… every time I want to say something, I just remember what happened with Chloé! And I know Alix wouldn’t be like that, but I just can’t help thinking about it, and I’m just… I’m…” He lowered his voice. “…I’m afraid of being rejected like that again.”

“That’s fair enough. I suppose Chloé’s rejection affected you more than you realized. But things will be different this time, I’m certain. You can do it.”

“I can do it,” Kim repeated, trying to reassure himself. “Yeah, I can and WILL do it. I’ve totally got this. It’ll be fine. It’ll be awesome! Thanks Max, you’re awesome too!”

He gave Max a hug, then ran off.

 

The gala wasn’t much different from the other seasonal socials had been, though it was far more relaxed than the formal ones. Max stood alone by the refreshments table, drinking glass after glass of orange juice and wondering if it was possible to get drunk off it. Scientifically it wasn’t, but he could always hope.

He tried so hard not to feel sorry for himself. He was happy for Kim. He really was! Kim was his best friend, and Max would do anything for him. Even if it hurt a lot.

Juleka wandered over to him, dressed in the kind of bright pink that her sweetheart Rose would usually wear.

“Hi Max, you alright?”

Max shrugged. “ _Alright_ is certainly the right word. Not great, but alright.”

“Unrequited love hurts, doesn’t it?”

He almost spat out his drink. She was smiling at him in a somewhat sad, pitying sort of way.

“Yes, I can tell,” she said. “I have much better gaydar than Alya does.”

“Juleka, did you ever have crushes on straight girls?” Max asked suddenly, unable to help himself. “Or girls who just weren’t interested in you? How did you deal with it?”

“I had plenty of crushes before Rose, but I was too shy to ever do anything about it so nothing ever happened.”

“How did you have the courage to ask out Rose?”

“She was already my close friend, so I knew that even if she didn’t feel the same way about me, it wouldn’t end up weird between us. Rose is such a sweetie, of course she would understand. And also Kim kind of egged me on.”

Max couldn’t help but grin. “Kim has no subtlety whatsoever.”

“Of course he doesn’t. You’re much better at hiding your feelings. I think I’m the only one who’s noticed so far.”

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. But maybe you should do something about it.”

“I can’t – Kim doesn’t love me like that, does he?”

Juleka shook her head. “Looks to me like he’s head over heels for Alix.”

“Maybe I should have done something much earlier. It’s too late now. They’re hanging out right at this moment. Probably already sweethearts by now.”

“I doubt it very much.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well, considering that Alix hasn’t even noticed yet that Kim likes her despite how obvious he’s been, she probably isn’t even remotely interested. And, uh, my gaydar is somewhat going off. At least, she’s not straight. I know that much. Same with Kim.”

Max tried not to put too much faith in that. Gaydar wasn’t exactly scientific, so it had to be taken with a grain of salt. Even if Juleka seemed to know more than she let on. Kim was bi, Max knew that, but Alix? What was she, then?

“Anyway,” Juleka said, “I’ll be off now, gotta go back to my sweet Rose and get her that drink she asked me for. Goodbye Max, and good luck.”

She took a drink off the table and walked away. Lucky her… she and Rose were together, and perfectly happy. Though they didn’t exactly tell people the nature of their relationship, no one was really fooled into thinking it was merely close friendship. Thankfully, it seemed that the royalty class at least all seemed to be alright with it. That gave Max a little hope for the future.

He took another swig of orange juice, feeling the fruity sugars imbuing him with hyper energy. Perhaps he shouldn’t have had so much of it. He could barely stand still, wanting to bounce up and down on his toes. His brain was going much too fast as well, coming up with all sorts of stupid thoughts and scenarios quicker than he could stop them.

Was it selfish to wish that Juleka was right, and that Alix didn’t love Kim back? But then again, he didn’t really wish that. He just wanted Kim to be happy, that was what. The problem was whether or not it would make _him_ happy too.

Most of all he wished he had done something earlier. He should have told Kim the truth a long time ago. It would be too late to do that now, when things were so far along. But the longer he waited, the more painful it felt…

 

Meanwhile, Kim and Alix (and her snake) spent the whole afternoon being able to mess around without any supervision whatsoever, sliding down the railings, clambering up onto the school roof and trying to catch pigeons, throwing algae from the stream at each other, having rollerskate races, trying to avoid the school guards hanging around, jumping off dangerously high tree branches…

By the time the sun was setting, they were both quite tired and they sat on the warm grass under the trees, resting. The little daisies growing everywhere gave Kim an idea.

“Let’s see who can make a daisy chain flower crown the quickest,” he said, starting to pick a few flowers.

“I don’t know how to make those. All the flowers growing in my kingdom are artificial or for decoration, I’m never allowed to pick them.”

“Here, I’ll show you how to do it.”

Using his nail to make a little hole in the stem of one flower, he linked it up with another, then carried on. She watched with interest. Within a few minutes he had a full flower crown ready.

“Nice!” she said, taking off her headdress which the snake was curled up around, putting it down on the grass beside her. “Go on then, make me a cool hippie flower witch.”

He put the flower crown on her head, then sat back and had a look…

It didn’t suit her. Not even a little bit. Yet despite that, he was hit by a surge of longing so strong it made him feel dizzy. There was just something about the way she was smirking at him, her head tilted at that frustratingly cute angle, glints of gold from the setting sun lighting up her pink hair, the tank top leaving every muscle on her arms exposed…

He knew he should tell her how he felt. He’d promised Max he would do it, and he hadn’t yet. Now was the time.

He was just about to speak when she lay down on the grass on her back, looking up at the sky. “There are actually clouds in this country, it’s such a nice change. I can do that thing they do in movies where they look at the clouds and try to point out shapes. Never done it before. That one there, it looks like a… a snake! It’s totally a snake, right?”

Kim looked at the cloud she was pointing at. “Um… it l-looks like an earthworm to me b-but…”

“Gee, what’s up? You sound ill all of a sudden.”

He certainly felt ill – in particular, too lovesick to function properly. Maybe that was a good thing, though. Maybe she would finally notice. That might be better than outright telling her, which was still too nerve-wracking to properly consider.

“Can we have an arm wrestle?” he asked her suddenly.

“What, now? Sure, I guess, that’s kinda random but why not…”

She turned onto her side and lazily grabbed his hand. He was sure the adrenaline would give him enough strength to win easily, but he was still distracted enough to lose within just a few seconds.

“You’re off your game, dude,” she said. “Are you too tired or something? Because that wasn’t even a challenge.”

Just hearing the word “challenge” would ordinarily have snapped him back into action, but he was hyperaware of the fact that he hadn’t yet let go of her hand, and was sitting so close to her, and everything around them was so idyllic and peaceful, and it was just so overwhelming he could hardly even speak.

“Yeah, I’m tired,” he mumbled.

“You need more sleep. You’ve been working yourself too hard recently.” When he didn’t reply, she waved her other hand in front of his face. “Kim? You there?”

“Sorry, I’m j-just…” He scrambled to think of something to say that wasn’t cheesy. “Your hair… I don’t see it that much because… headdress… anyway it looks, um, really pretty…”

Whoops, that was definitely cheesy.

“Oh, cool, thanks.”

Phew, she didn’t seem to think that was weird.

“Can I stroke it?”

He wanted to smack himself in the face – what kind of stupid, weird question was that? Why didn’t he ever _think_ before speaking?

“What is it with you thinking of me as a cat?” she said, grinning. “You did this at the sleepover too, remember?”

Oh thank goodness, she wasn’t weirded out by that either, despite the fact that it was definitely, objectively, weird.

“Well yeah, you’re really cute,” he said quickly, feeling his cheeks burning. “Not just like a cat, I mean, but like… cute. As in, pretty. N-not as much as me though! I’m the coolest, obviously, haha, but like… you’re second, so…”

She laughed. “You’re seriously the only person I know who has ever called me ‘cute’. Usually the word is ‘annoying’ or ‘intimidating’, but ‘cute’ is new. Clearly I’ve not been scary enough lately. Want me to pretend I’m gonna get the snake to eat you again?”

“If you want.”

“Seriously?” She laughed again. “Kim, you’re after something, aren’t you? You’re being so overly nice to me today! What is it you want from me, a telephone? More skating lessons? A less violent Monopoly game?”

“I’m allowed to be nice, aren’t I?”

“Oh yeah, I’m not complaining! It’s just so _weird_ , like you’re trying to appease me or soften a blow or secretly in love with me or something…”

His heart skipped so many beats he was half sure he was having a heart attack. It must have shown on his face, since she frowned suddenly.

“Kim, are you okay? Did I say something? I was just kidding, I didn’t mean–” She let go of his hand rather quickly and sat up. “Wait a second… okay this sounds really weird but I’m just checking… _are_ you in love with me?”

How on earth was he supposed to answer that? The honest answer was _yes!_ But the way she was frowning, looking as if that was not the answer she wanted to hear…

Still, he had promised Max he would do this. It was now or never.

“Since September.”

He had hoped he would stay calm enough to not run off straightaway to avoid whatever the consequences of his confession were, but as soon as he saw the look of complete shock on her face, he leapt to his feet and tore off without looking back.

 

Kim did not sleep very well that night. He hadn’t even been down to have dinner, just munching on snacks in his room instead, and was seriously contemplating hiding away in here all of the next day too. He did _not_ want to run into Alix. She probably thought he was a complete weirdo, a creep, she wouldn’t want to be his friend now…

In the morning there was a knock on the door. He stayed as silent as possible just in case it was Alix, but then he heard the reassuring voice of Max on the other side.

“Kim, are you in there? Can I come in?”

Kim opened the door. “Oh man, Max, I could not be happier to see you… How was the gala?”

“It was okay,” Max said. “But I’m actually here with a message. Alix wants to talk to you about something, but she wanted me to check first if you actually want to see her or not. I’m assuming you two left something on a bit of a cliff-hanger yesterday.”

“Yeah…” Kim sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll talk to her. I may as well get it over with. I’ll tell you everything later, I promise.”

“Alright, I’ll send her along. See you later.”

Kim watched Max walk back down the corridor, feeling dread settling in his stomach. Hopefully this wouldn’t be too bad…

A few minutes later he got another knock on his door, and he reluctantly opened it and let Alix in. For once she didn’t have the snake with her – perhaps it had just eaten or something. Well, at least that meant he wouldn’t be killed with it, no matter what else happened.

“Ignore yesterday,” he said immediately, not really looking at her. “Just pretend that didn’t happen, I’m sorry, I was just being an idiot and I know you’re probably mad at me and–”

“What? No, I’m not mad at you.” She was looking at him with an expression that looked mostly like pity, though it was always hard to tell what she was thinking when she wasn’t trying to make it clear. “It’s okay. But I really have to tell you something, so just be quiet and listen.”

So she wasn’t mad, that was a good start. Hopefully the rest of whatever she was going to say wouldn’t be too bad either.

“At my oracle session, the question I asked Master Fu was if there’s gonna be a succession crisis in my kingdom after I die. He said there will be one. Most people would be really upset about that, but for me… it’s good. That was the answer I wanted. Do you know why?”

Kim shook his head. He had never really thought about kingdom succession very much before.

“It’s because if there’s no one to succeed me, it means I have no heirs. And the way succession laws work in my kingdom, it means I have no spouse either. As in, I never marry or have kids. And most people would be horrified about that, too, but…”

She was looking at the ground, as if she was ashamed or nervous to say it.

“…I don’t even know why, but I just… have this kind of… _aversion_ to stuff like that. You know, romance and marriage and stuff. It’s never interested me. Boys, girls, whatever, I don’t care. I have no preference. As in, my preference is _none_. And because I’m a royal, I always assumed when I grow up I’ll end up forced into a marriage or something and pressured into providing an heir for the throne, that kind of thing, that always happens to people. But the idea of that… it _terrifies_ me.”

Her voice was so quiet by now it was almost hard to hear. It seemed like this was the first time she was ever saying any of this out loud.

“So I was super relieved when I got Fu’s answer because it means I’ll get to live as the kind of pharaoh I want to, without having to marry anyone or anything, I can’t stand the idea of having to do something like that with no choice. I can just be myself. And I guess it’s kinda weird… that I don’t, you know, ever have crushes on people or know what it’s like to fall in love like that, but... maybe I’m not the only one? I don’t know, I’ve never met anyone else like me, but if as a pharaoh I can let the world know this is who I am then maybe other people like this will come forward saying they feel the same way and I’ll know I’m not alone…”

She finally looked back up at him, though she still seemed somewhat nervous.

“And so yeah, I’m not into you like that. But it’s not personal – I’m not into _anyone_ like that. And I want to let you know that this doesn’t change anything, you’re still my best friend, okay? I mean, it’s actually kinda flattering that you like me. I never expected anyone to, I’m not really… I don’t know, conventional? Feminine? I’m just weird, I never thought anyone would be into me. What do you see in me, anyway?”

Kim’s throat felt so choked up it was a wonder he could even speak. “Honestly I don’t even know… you’re really cool, I guess? So spirited and carefree and the only person who can ever match me in a challenge… it’s inspiring, and awesome, and… uh, not that it matters too much, but you are pretty hot, so…”

She cracked a grin. “So are bossy, intimidating, hot girls your type? Because there was Chloé too, right?”

“Haha yeah, maybe… Did you really not notice I liked you before yesterday? I think the whole class had noticed already.”

“I really didn’t know,” she admitted. “I’m so oblivious when it comes to stuff like this. I mean, I did occasionally think about it. Like when you played that song for me on the day of the Cupid Festival, but then you said it was a friendship song, so…”

“It was a love song.”

“Ah, that makes more sense. And then at spring with the sports bra I wondered too, but I just chalked it up to you being a teenage guy and having a thing for sports bras.”

“Well, I guess it was a combination of all that...”

“Fair enough.”

“Anyway, um, for the record I totally do care about you as a friend too, I promise,” Kim said. “Like, platonically. So thanks for saying you’ll still be my best friend, and we can just carry on like normal… maybe now I’ve got this off my chest this crush will go away… I really just do wanna be your friend. You’re an awesome friend.”

“Yeah, you’re a… a… okay, this is going to sound really cheesy, but I have to say it, so just shut up and listen.”

She took a deep breath, folding her arms and looking at the floor again.

“Just because I’m not in love with you, doesn’t mean I don’t love you, okay? Because I totally do. You’re my best friend, and before this year I didn’t really have any friends, so you’re just… you’re really important to me and this friendship means so much to me, okay? And you’re so awesome and supportive and always there for me… a-and I will be your winggirl. You deserve someone amazing who loves you back. Anyone would be lucky to have you. You’re the best and I just want you to be happy.”

Kim didn’t dare say anything, since he felt sure if he even said a word he would just burst into tears on the spot. He was sure no one had _ever_ said something so nice to him before – except maybe Max.

“And I have something to give you,” Alix said, unfolding her arms and looking up at him again. “I forgot about it ages ago but this all kind of reminded me. Anyway, kneel down.”

He kneeled, now roughly the same height as her.

“Now close your eyes.”

That sounded ominous. Feeling apprehensive, he closed his eyes and waited. He heard her footsteps coming towards him, then she took his face in her hands…

And _kissed him._

He was so shocked he opened his eyes – though by that time it was over already anyway.

“That was left over from the mistletoe at the winter party,” she said, and he noticed she was blushing a little. “I thought I might as well do it, since you like me and everything. I guess we’d both forgotten about it.”

He tried not to freak out, though it was difficult when his brain felt like it had turned to mush, and his heartrate was so high he felt like he was going to collapse. He could still feel his lips tingling, though it had only lasted a few seconds at most…

“I hadn’t forgotten,” he admitted. “I just… didn’t want to ask… thought it would be weird…”

“Well yeah, it was pretty weird. But not bad, I guess. Anyway, I’m gonna go brush my teeth and hope I didn’t catch anything from you, so I’ll see you later. And you have my permission to tell Max everything.”

“Thanks.” That was something he was definitely going to do, alright.

“No problem.” She gave him a friendly punch in the arm, then opened the door and left.

Kim didn’t move from where he was for a few minutes, still reeling from the kiss. Memories of his oracle session suddenly came back to him, especially one phrase in particular: _don’t get your hopes up._

This was what Master Fu had meant. It was clear now. Kim did indeed get a kiss from Alix, just like he wanted… but not for the reasons he wanted. It was a platonic kiss, if such a thing existed.

But at this point he didn’t even mind. Mostly, he was just relieved that Alix still wanted to be his friend. He was content with that. At least now he had nothing to hide from her, and he knew nothing would get in the way of their friendship. The thought made him feel so much better.

Yeah… friends. That would be for the best.


	25. Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads-up that here is where the story starts getting a tad more serious. And by that, I mean please imagine me kicking you in the face with a boot labelled "ANGST". Have a good time! :D

The summer holidays began, and most of the students returned to their home countries for the long break. Kim left with Marinette and went to Cheng, and Max and Alix took the ocean liner to the northern port before going their separate ways.

It wasn’t that the journey made Alix feel irritable and tired, since she had taken that journey before and it wasn’t even that long. Perhaps it had been the fact that she hadn’t yet caught up on the sleep she missed the other night, where her brain had kept her awake for hours trying to think of how to let Kim down as gently as possible.

Considering this was the first year of her life she’d actually had any close friends, she had found herself more terrified of losing Kim’s friendship than she had realized. In fact, if he hadn’t run off immediately after confessing to her then she probably would have just agreed to be his sweetheart on the spot, just to keep him around. At least she’d had more time to think it over and trust that he hadn’t just been using their friendship to get close to her. No, he was a good friend, he understood that she didn’t feel the same way and was fine with it. Thank goodness for that.

The entourage of guards and press that turned up at the airport for her arrival did nothing to help her rather sour mood. Once she got home she was greeted by her family, then thankfully allowed to do as she pleased for the rest of the day. She decided to go rollerskating, hoping that would make her feel a little better.

She was just stepping out into the corridor from the throne room when it hit – a sudden surge of emotion, so strong she wasn’t even sure what it was at first. Anger? Fear? Helplessness? It felt like a mix of all three, so powerful she felt dizzy.

“Are you alright?” Jalil asked her. “You look really ill suddenly… really pale…”

Taking deep breaths, she tried to calm herself. Maybe this was a panic attack? She had heard of those. But then again, nothing seemed to have caused it… was that possible?

“You should take a nap,” he continued. “I’ll wake you up before dinner if you want.”

Alix nodded, unable to speak. She went down to her room and lay on the bed, not really expecting to be able to fall asleep considering how she was feeling, but her lack of recent sleep managed to overpower it within seconds.

 

She should have known that her sudden bad mood would be an indicator that her dreams were going to turn into those creepy, haunting ones again. This time it wasn’t ambiguous at all – it was a nightmare, and not just any nightmare, but the most vivid, realistic nightmare she’d ever had in her life. Bolting upright, tears streaming down her cheeks, she could only remember one thing.

Her snake beheaded.

The poor innocent queen cobra, its head having been cut off and lying beside the rest of its body.

_Dead._

She scrambled out of bed and climbed into the snake enclosure, practically blinded by her tears but not caring. She just needed to find her snake. The nightmare couldn’t have been real, surely that couldn’t have happened, her snake couldn’t have been decapitated–

Oh thank goodness, there it was. Dropping to her knees, she picked it up and hugged it as best as she could. Kim the First was alive and well, head firmly attached to the rest of its scaly body. Seeming to sense her terror, it curled up around her reassuringly.

She couldn’t help breaking down into tears. It was only a dream, she knew that, it wasn’t real, but for some reason the emotions she felt were just not going away. She was just so scared, so afraid of what would happen if her snake really died, especially as brutally as that, so angry at anyone who would potentially do something like that, so upset and not knowing what to do…

 

At some point Jalil came into the room, expecting to wake her up from her nap in time for dinner, but he instead discovered her sitting in the snake enclosure, clinging onto her pet snake for dear life and still sobbing all over it.

“I h-had a nightmare,” she said before he could ask. “Snake… beheaded…”

Her eyes were still burning with so many tears that she could hardly see, but it looked like her brother was climbing into the snake enclosure too. Sure enough within a few seconds she felt him hugging her, just like he used to do when she’d had nightmares as a little kid.

“It wasn’t real,” he reassured her. “It was just a bad dream.”

“But… what if…”

“Shhh, don’t dwell on it. You’ll forget about it soon enough. It was just a nightmare.”

“Or a vision!” She stroked her precious pet’s scales, vowing silently she would never take it for granted ever again. “It was just… so r-realistic… I’ve n-never had a dream like that before! I’m s-scared!”

“It’s okay. It seemed like you were ill earlier, maybe that’s why you had such a weird dream. You just need more rest. It’ll be alright.”

“But snake lifespans! Shorter than h-humans… he’s gonna… he’s gonna d-die someday and I just… I can’t… take that… I’m gonna break, Jalil! I can’t live without this snake!”

She burst into fresh tears, fairly certain she had never cried this hard before in her life. Why was she even feeling so irrationally terrified over a nightmare? Normally she was never afraid of anything!

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Jalil said. “For now at least this snake’s here to stay, okay? I promise. Everything will be fine.”

It sounded so hollow to her somehow. How did he know everything would be fine? He didn’t, that was what! He was only saying that to make her feel better, and it didn’t work whatsoever. Terrified, upset, angry, exhausted… she was filled with so many emotions it felt like she was going to burst. Had she ever felt this bad before? Not that she could remember.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go to dinner,” said Jalil, “since you’re feeling so unwell. Just stay here for now and I’ll have some food brought in for you, okay?”

“Okay…”

He patted her on the back and then left the room, leaving her alone with the snake. She tried to stop her tears but nothing seemed to work, like her brain had gone into shock and completely refused to listen to her.

Hopefully she would forget about this nightmare soon, right? She would get over it, and in a few days she would look back and laugh at how silly she had been. That would happen, wouldn’t it? _Wouldn’t it?_

 

 

Imperial Prince Adrien returned home to find his governess Nathalie standing at the top of the big marble staircase above the entrance hall, looking down over him with a much more serious expression than usual.

“Adrien, did you bring all your possessions back home with you?”

“Yes, why?”

“You may unpack them all fully. You won’t be needing to take them back to school.”

The porters at his side immediately began opening the various boxes of luggage, hauling things out.

“Why?” Adrien asked again.

“Your father, His Imperial Majesty, has decided it is best for you to remain here in Agreste from now on. In September you will not be returning to school, nor ever again.”

The words took a few seconds to sink in. He wasn’t allowed back to school…? Ever? It was like a sudden punch to the gut.

“Why can’t I go to school?” he asked, shocked to hear his voice cracking a little. “I love it there! I have so many friends, and I’m learning so much, and–”

“I’m afraid it’s not up to me,” Nathalie said, not looking him in the eye. “It is your father’s decision. You know he never wanted you to leave Agreste in the first place.”

“But what’s wrong with school?”

“During the most recent holidays your father noticed that your attitude seems to have changed. He does not think it a good change. If you stay here, away from the nobility and the riff-raff of lower ranks, you can learn to be… more like him.”

“But it’s not fair! Why didn’t he ask me? Or tell me earlier? I _want_ to stay at school, I like having some freedom, I–”

“I believe this is what the emperor meant by your attitude having changed,” she said, looking down at the ground by her feet. “This carefree, spirited attitude, wanting to rebel and have your way all the time...”

Adrien glared up at her, wanting to yell at her, but he stopped himself. It was not Nathalie’s fault. She was just the messenger, and it didn’t look like she was happy about this outcome either. Anyway, hadn’t this same thing happened to Kim after the spring holidays? Perhaps Adrien could get out of it with some persuasion too.

He took a deep breath and then said, as clear and commanding as possible, “I would like to speak to my father about this.”

“Your father is abroad at the moment, directing the troops in the 7th region. He may not be back for some months yet, and he has already made sure to inform me that no amount of clever debating will change his mind – you are ‘grounded’, as the commoners put it. No leaving the palace. Do not even enter the palace grounds without permission, or you will have to stay in your room until your father deems you fit to leave.”

Grounded? _Grounded_ was for people who weren’t being forced into living up to a duty that was thrust upon them, just because they wanted some friends and an education that wasn’t just propaganda. This was on another level entirely.

But wait… 7th region? In the colonies?

“What’s father doing in the colonies?” he asked. “He’s not taking over more land, is he?”

“…I’m not sure.”

That meant yes.

“But he should be back within the year,” she continued. “There are some issues in the region that he wanted to see to personally, so he went there himself.”

“What issues? Kim said that region’s too dangerous, that’s why he can’t go back home right now, so isn’t it too dangerous for father too?”

Nathalie shuffled on her feet nervously. “It may be more dangerous for citizens of Lê Chiến in that region than of Agreste.”

He felt his heart sinking. “What’s going on, Nathalie? What is father up to? Kim says there’s increasing hostilities between Agreste and Lê Chiến, is it because father did something?”

“The information is classified, so I really don’t think I should–”

“ _Please!_ Kim’s my friend, I have to know! I want him to be safe!”

She sighed, closing her eyes and rubbing her forehead. “Fine. I don’t know everything about it, but there were plans for peace between the two nations. The emperor was going to return a part of the 7th region. However, the leaders of Lê Chiến were unhappy because upon inspection, all the natural resources of that area had been stripped, leaving it essentially worthless and unable to even be used as farmland.”

“You mean we took their land, wasted it all up until it was unusable, then tried to give it back to them under the guise of a peace offering?”

“It does sound rather harsh when you put it like that, but yes. The leaders of Lê Chiến have been asking for a piece of land that is not completely barren, but our empire cannot afford to give any away. Your father is directing troops to find more land, especially since much of the area is filled with jewel mines which would be good to have under the empire’s control.”

“So he is taking more land,” Adrien muttered through clenched teeth. “And what about Kim? Why is it unsafe for him to go back home?”

“There have been skirmishes at the borders,” Nathalie said, looking uncomfortable. “Ever since the troops have been stationed in the area, there has been an increase in raids and attacks on merchants and traders carrying supplies in and out of Lê Chiến…”

“The troops are trying to stop trade from getting into Lê Chiến? Please tell me father’s gone to stop them.”

She looked even more uncomfortable now. “Well actually, I highly doubt he disapproves of their behaviour… he might indeed be encouraging of it…”

“You know what, I’m not even surprised,” Adrien snapped. “It’s no wonder no one at school liked me at first, when our empire goes and does things like this without me even knowing.”

“Adrien, running an empire is a matter of strength, and–”

“Oh come on, I know you don’t really believe that. You’re just saying that because my father made you say it!” He began stomping off towards his bedroom.

“Wait, Adrien! You have a schedule to attend to!”

“I don’t feel well. Leave me alone!”

Storming away into his room, seething, he realized that was the first time in his life he’d had an outburst of anger like that. Maybe he had grown a backbone at school, surrounded by others who were not afraid to speak their mind. It felt… freeing.

But that did not solve any problems. He was still stuck at home indefinitely, and Kim was still in danger. Not to mention Kim’s kingdom, which would soon end up Agreste territory if he didn’t do something soon. But what? How could he do anything when his own father refused to let him leave the palace?

 

 

Meanwhile, Kim himself was not having a much better time. Cheng was absolutely lovely, he had been there before and was welcomed with open arms, but so many things were playing on his mind that it was hard for him to enjoy himself here like he usually did.

“What’s the matter?” Marinette asked him, finding him leaning on a balcony railing one day, watching the royal guards at their practice. “You seem so weirdly distant.”

“I miss home,” Kim mumbled. He stared off into the distance, the rolling hills fading away into the horizon. Lê Chiến was in that direction. So close, yet so far. “I wish I could go back, I don’t even know when I can… and I’m worried about its safety…”

Marinette put a comforting arm around him. “That’s understandable. It’s been a long time since you’ve been there, hasn’t it? I’d miss home so much too if I was away that long. And I don’t know much about the safety situation at all, that must be stressful to think about. But I’ll do my best to make your stay here as fun as possible in the meantime. Is there anything in particular you need me to do?”

“Nah, it’s fine, you’re already being awesome… so is your family…” He looked back down at the royal guard practice. “Hey Mari? Who’s that one who’s delivering the food? That one in the corner with the basket…”

Marinette peered over the balcony edge. “Oh, him? It’s just Bluebell. One of the servants. Why?”

“Huh? No reason…” He rested his head on his arms and continued watching the practice. Or rather, watching the servant handing out fresh fruit to everyone. Bluebell… what a cute name.

“I think there is a reason,” Marinette said, smirking. “If you want me to set you up with Bluebell you can just ask.”

“W-what? Haha no, I’m not… I just…” He sighed. “Okay, yeah, he’s kind of cute. And I guess that means you probably noticed somehow that I like guys. But… it’s not like I know anything about him, and… I just… I’m trying to get over someone else, and… well…”

“Kim, the truth is I saw you and Adrien kissing at the winter party – you’re both so tall that the chairs didn’t exactly hide you. So yes, I guessed you like guys. And I can also guess who you’re trying to get over, considering how much you’re always drooling over Alix like some kind of… anyway, I know you like her.”

“Yeah, well it’s not happening, so I’d better fall for someone else quickly so I can carry on being her friend without feeling like a total creep.”

“Aw Kim, you’re not a creep! It’s okay to have a crush on a friend. Nino has a crush on me, and I don’t think he’s a creep. You’re only a creep if you be creepy, and you are definitely not doing that. It’s clear you care about her a lot as a friend. That’s a good thing.”

Kim smiled at her. “Thanks, Marinette. You always know the right thing to say.”

“Noooo, I so don’t! I can’t even speak a full sentence around Adrien! I’ve just known you since forever, that’s why it’s easy to talk to you. You’re like… like a cousin to me. Or some kind of long-lost brother. And I’m going to help you feel better if I can. So, want me to set you up with Bluebell? He’s really nice from what I know of him!”

“I don’t know, he’s a boy so I don’t think that would go down well…”

“And he has a twin sister who is also really cute, for the record.”

“Really? Okay. I’ll… I’ll just meet them then. That would be cool.”

“Nice!” Marinette held out her fist for a fist bump, and Kim happily obliged.

 

 

 

Over the rest of the summer holidays things had not improved at all for Alix – in fact they had just gotten worse. The nightmare about her snake was still haunting her almost all the time. Whenever she closed her eyes she could see the image of her poor decapitated pet, like it was branded onto the insides of her eyelids, forcing her to relive it over and over again. She took her snake with her everywhere for its protection, refusing to let anyone else touch it. There was no way she was taking any chances.

Her odd moods did not improve either, and though she tried her best to shake it off as normal teenage mood swings, it was clearly something else entirely. What was wrong with her? It was like she was steadily feeling more and more unstable, confined, impulsive, exhausted…

It made her so ill she ended up being let off her pharaoh duties many days, just because she looked so tired. On these days she would take her skates and leave the palace, just needing to get out for a while and clear her head. Why was she feeling so weird closed in, anyway? It wasn’t like she was grounded or anything, she could do what she wanted.

Over the weeks she found herself spending more and more time with her brother, for some reason feeling like she missed him even though he was clearly right there. It was somewhat nostalgic, in fact. Just like things had been when they were younger. She had hoped maybe it would make her feel better, but it really didn’t at all. Her mood just continued to deteriorate.

At some point during the holidays Max had come to visit with some trade shipments. Alix had told him everything, about the horrific dream and the way it still made her feel ill even all these weeks later. He suggested it might be school stress catching up to her, or a spell of anxiety disorder, or something like that – but that there was probably nothing to worry about, and queen cobra lifespans were long enough that the snake would be around for at least another 15 years or so. That didn’t really reassure her.

 

The weeks passed, and things just got worse and worse, until one fateful night very near the end of the holidays. She had a dream that she couldn’t remember exactly, but it was definitely something to do with the snake pond where she had adopted her pet snake from in the first place. Being asleep, dreaming about that place, that wasn’t so bad. The trouble started when she suddenly woke up in the quietest hours of the night.

Her hand… it felt like it was _burning_. As if someone had stuck a hot needle into the back of it. She sat up and squinted at it in the darkness, but there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with it. Lying back down she tried to go back to sleep.

The pain in her hand suddenly tripled in intensity, shooting up her arm like there was lava in her veins. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She sat up again and looked back at her arm, but there was still nothing there. Rubbing her hand and trying to get the pain to stop, she felt violent tingles running through her arm all the way up to her shoulder, so painful it made her stomach heave.

She held back a sob and pushed herself out of bed. It felt like her feet were made out of lead, and her ears were ringing so much it was like she was going to faint. She managed to crawl into the snake enclosure where her beloved snake was already waiting for her, having sensed that something seemed to be very wrong. It slithered over to her and wrapped itself around her, hissing soothingly as she clutched her stinging arm, struggling to breathe through the pain.

She hoped whatever it was would have stopped by now, but it continually increased. Spikes of pain kept stabbing at her arm, making her feel sick, making her wish she could just tear her whole arm free of her shoulder socket just to get away from it. Minutes passed, and still there was no end in sight. It hurt so much she curled up into a ball and bit down on the skin on her knees, hoping it would distract her. Surprisingly she barely even felt it. It was nothing compared to how excruciating the pain in her arm was, after all.

What was even happening? Had she done something to her arm without realizing? She couldn’t even remember now, not when her brain was so fogged up and her entire arm felt like it was on fire. Maybe she should go call someone for help, but the prospect of getting up, actually moving, needing to speak… it was too daunting. She was immobilized, paralyzed, completely overcome with fear and pain. The only thing she could do was cry, feeling terror overwhelm her every time the pain kicked it up a notch, like the very blood in her arm was curdling and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Of course she was no stranger to pain. Living an active lifestyle meant she’d had her fair share of injuries. But she had never, ever suffered anything nearly as bad as whatever was happening now. And every time she thought it couldn’t get any worse, that surely it had to stop now, it somehow managed to exceed itself.

How had she not passed out yet? Or thrown up yet? Or _died?_ Surely she was going to die. No human being could ever go through something so horrendously agonizing, for so long, and live to tell the tale. No, she was definitely going to die, not even knowing the reason why, not even caring at this point. All she wanted was for the pain to stop.

It did not stop. For what felt like hours, days, _years_ , it continued. She gave up trying to fight it and just lay in the enclosure with the snake, crying. No one deserved to come to such a painful, torturous end. No one.

 

After what felt like an eternity, the pain finally subsided. It went away as suddenly as it had arrived, leaving Alix confused and exhausted. She wiped away her tears and lay back down, falling asleep right there in the snake enclosure.

Thank goodness she was alive. Whatever that had been, she never wanted to experience it ever again. Or any pain at all, for that matter. It hadn’t left a visible mark, but she was certainly not going to be able to forget that in a hurry, much like the nightmare about her snake being beheaded that she’d had right at the start of the holidays. It was probably going to haunt her forever.

Was there any possible way to ask Master Fu about this at the oracle session? She needed answers. But the students could not ask him questions about the past, it had to be about the future. Surely, though, there _had_ to be some way she could find out what was going on?

She would just have to think about it.


	26. Quarantine

Adrien stood at his balcony, rucksack on his back, looking nervously over the edge. It was now or never.

Two things were going to happen tomorrow. One was that school was going to start. The other was that his father was going to return home.

If Adrien couldn’t escape tonight, he never would be able to. Not under the close watchful eye of his strict father. No, if he ever wanted to be able to go back to school, to be able to warn Kim about the truth of what was happening between their countries, to be able to speak to his friends again, to be able to learn about things that would actually be useful… he had to get out tonight. Otherwise his chance would be lost forever.

He would have liked to escape earlier, but he had decided not to risk leaving before having his flu vaccination. There had been a startling number of cases in the area recently and it was quickly rising. If he left before being immunized then he would surely catch it, and that would put a dent in the whole “escape and get back to school” plan. As it was he was probably going to reach the school several days after classes had already started, but it was better late than never.

Taking a deep breath, he grabbed the rope he had tied around the railing and slowly lowered himself over the side. His upper arm ached where he’d had his flu shot earlier. That would make it a little harder to climb down quickly. It was alright though, he had left himself a little spare time. There were still 5 minutes before the guard shift change when he needed to be able to slip past the gate unnoticed.

He had almost reached the bottom when, to his horror, he heard a voice at the balcony far above him.

“Adrien, what are you doing? Come back immediately!”

He looked up to see Nathalie peering over the railing. No! What was she doing here?

“I’m not coming back,” he said. “Just go back to sleep and pretend you never saw me.”

“Are you running away? Your father will be furious!”

“Well did he ever consider that _I’m_ furious?” Adrien snapped. “I don’t want to stay locked up in my room forever, just this summer was bad enough. None of you would let me leave or even correspond with any of my friends, and the prospect of staying like that for even longer, grounded… no, under _house arrest_ , it was driving me mad! So I’m getting out of here before it’s too late!”

Nathalie sighed. “Look… I understand it’s difficult. Being cooped up and having every aspect of your life controlled, especially to come back to that after getting a taste of freedom… it must be so hard on you. But your father is a very powerful man. Even if you did escape, he would find you. You would be caught so quickly.”

“But I have to at least try! Oh Nathalie, please don’t tell him! Don’t tell anyone! Just pretend you never talked to me, you only noticed I was missing long after I’d already left, something like that.”

“I don’t know if I could do that…”

“I’m not just being selfish, okay? I’m not just doing this for me. I’m doing this for Kim, too. He deserves to know the truth about what’s going on in his home and I’m going to tell him. Please don’t stop me, Nathalie. _Please._ ”

There was a long silence. Finally he heard her say, “Good luck.” Looking back up at the balcony a few seconds later, she was already gone.

Thank goodness. Only 2 minutes left now. Adrien let go of the rope and jumped down the last few metres, then ran towards the gates as fast as he could. Freedom, finally, after spending the holidays slowly going completely numb stuck in that one room…

 

 

Kim and Marinette were sent back to school by carriage, the journey seeming long and tedious. For some reason, looking out of the windows, there didn’t seem to be anyone around at all, even in the towns they passed through. Everywhere seemed deserted.

“Usually these places are bustling with activity,” Marinette said, frowning. “Sometimes I used to stop by at the market here, but… it seems to be shut…”

“Did all these doors always have red paint marks on them?” Kim asked.

“No, I don’t remember those being there either! Something’s weird…”

All through the journey, the towns they passed through seemed to have become ghost towns, devoid of any humanity whatsoever. It was like some catastrophe had struck, except that all the surroundings seemed to be completely intact. What was going on?

In any case, Kim did not feel like talking much for once. Other than the fact that he seemed to be catching a bit of a sore throat, he couldn’t get his mind off home. He had even been dreaming about it. The familiar palace walls, the beautiful scenery he grew up with, his family…

It was oddly painful to think about. How long would it be before he could ever go back there? What if he could never go home?

No. That was ridiculous. Of course he’d be able to go home again someday, once all this Agreste drama had blown over. Max would say that too if he was here.

Max! Of course! Much better to think about him than to think about home. After all, Kim missed Max a lot too – more than he had realized he would considering it had only been a few months – but at least he was going to see him again very soon. That was definite. Knowing he would be able to speak to his best friend again and hang out with him… it cheered Kim up a lot.

“By the way, how did things go with the Bell twins?” Marinette asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“Oh… I don’t know. I didn’t talk to them much. Bluebell wasn’t around much, and Redbell doesn’t speak much French and I don’t know any Chinese so…”

He knew it wasn’t really the language barrier that stopped him from getting to know Redbell better. It was the thought of being rejected, yet again. Not to mention that he was only staying for the summer, that wasn’t long enough for anything. What was the point?

“Well if you’re staying again for the next holidays then I’ll help you,” Marinette said. “I got Alya and Nino together, right?”

Kim did not want to think about the prospect of staying away from home for yet another holiday. Anyway, Marinette’s method of getting Alya and Nino together had been _locking them in a cupboard_ , so he didn’t quite trust her matchmaking skills. Perhaps changing the subject would be a good idea.

“I miss Max,” he said quickly.

“Already? It’s been about two months!”

“I know, I know, I’m just… I was getting used to having him around. I can always talk to him about anything and he’s always so good at like, advice and stuff. And these two months have felt like a very long time without him.”

Marinette gave him an odd smile that he couldn’t quite figure out the meaning of. “You’ll get to see him again soon, don’t worry! I’m sure he misses you a lot too!”

“You think so?”

“Of course! You two are so close!”

“Yeah. He’s my best friend.”

Marinette’s smile briefly changed into an expression of disbelief. “Best… yep. Friends. You two are best friends. Absolutely.” She smiled at him again, almost playfully.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” She chuckled and turned to look out of the window again at the barren townscape.

“Like you know something… suspicious…”

“That’s ridiculous.”

She was lying, of course she was. But about what?

 

The carriage arrived at school, only to immediately be surrounded by people in what looked like plague doctor outfits.

“Your Royal Highnesses,” one of them said, bowing at Kim and Marinette once they had exited the carriage, “the medical staff have been asked to receive all students to ensure that they have been vaccinated against the ML-1 influenza strain.”

“Influenza?” Marinette asked. “No, neither of us have had a flu jab recently… why? Is there something going round?”

“Yes, and it’s very serious. Are you sure you did not receive any message informing you of the flu pandemic?”

“Wait, a pandemic? No, this is the first we’re hearing of this!”

“That is fair. The messages have only been sent recently since the pandemic hit so very suddenly and forcefully. It’s a particularly virulent strain which has been spreading across the continent rapidly over the past few days – carried not only in humans, but in animals too. Quarantine is being enforced everywhere to stop the spread.”

Well, that explained why all the towns everywhere had been so empty.

“Is it even safe here?” Marinette asked.

“Do not worry, we have spare vaccinations available in the medical centre. Come with us, we’ll make sure you are protected against it as soon as possible.”

Somewhat apprehensively, they followed the staff into the school and down to the medical centre. Marchesa Lila was just having a patch of cotton wool stuck onto her arm as they came in. The nurse attending to her looked up at everyone who had just entered and shook her head.

“Sorry, I just administered the last vaccine to Lila here,” she said. “We’ve completely run out of stock. I don’t know how long it’ll take for the next batch to come in, if we’re even getting another delivery considering the postal service has been shut down completely.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Marinette said, her voice sounding much more uncertain all of a sudden.

“You’ll have to be taken to the basement to be put into quarantine until the pandemic is over. In fact, don’t bother unpacking – we’ll have your things brought down to you. It’s best if you go immediately, for your own safety.”

“But what if we catch the flu?” She turned to Kim. “Didn’t you say you had a sore throat?”

Kim tried to fight the terror welling up inside him. “Well yeah but… it’s just a sore throat, it’s not…”

Wait – something else was welling up inside him too. His lunch! He put his hands over his mouth and ran over to the sink in the corner of the room, making it just in time.

It was alright, even if this was flu… flu was survivable, right? It wouldn’t keep him down for long, _right?_

He felt his stomach heave again. Yuck… hopefully it wouldn’t get much worse than this.

“You’ll be taken care of down in quarantine,” the nurse said. “Perhaps you should take a bucket with you for the walk down there… in case you throw up again…”

Kim nodded, suddenly feeling oddly tired. Someone gave him a bucket and he clutched onto it, his eyes almost closing on their own.

“Won’t I catch it too?” Marinette asked the nurse, a note of panic in her voice now. “If everyone who’s got it is being put into quarantine with everyone else then I’ll get it too! This is dangerous!”

“Sorry, but unless you’re immune, you’ll have to go into quarantine. It’s fine, the medical staff will take care of you in there, and there’s always a chance you won’t catch it.”

“Who else is there? Anyone else in the royal class?”

“Almost everyone, I believe. Many have already caught it.”

“Has anyone died?”

“No, of course not! Flu usually kills either very young or very old people, so everyone here should be fine. You’ll all recover.”

Marinette took a deep breath and nodded, taking hold of Kim’s arm and gripping it tightly for comfort. “Okay. Take us into quarantine.”

 

Max and Alix had both had their immunizations at the northern port, then taken the ocean liner together and reached school just the day before classes started. Once they had been cleared by the medical staff they wandered around the corridors looking for their fellow classmates, but hardly anyone seemed to be around. The only person they came across was Lila.

“Where is everyone?” Max asked.

“Quarantine,” Lila said, smirking. “Hardly anyone knew about the flu pandemic in time to get their vaccinations and the school only had a limited supply. In fact, I received the last one.”

“Is Kim in quarantine too?”

“Yep. He’s already caught the flu. Or at least, I saw him throwing up in the medical centre. They put him and Marinette into quarantine straightaway, down in the dungeons… I mean the basement! The basement. I doubt they’ll be coming out very soon.”

“Poor Kim,” Max muttered. “If it really is a pandemic then he’ll be stuck in quarantine for quite a while, which will be very boring for someone like him… well technically it’s not quarantine, it’s medical isolation, since quarantine is the confinement of healthy people who might be carrying the virus…”

“Well everyone’s calling it quarantine, so there. It’ll just be us three and Chloé here in actual classes, that’s all! Everyone else is in quarantine. Except Adrien, who’s not coming back to school according to Chloé.”

Max was barely listening, since his brain was working overtime. “If Kim’s already got the flu, it’ll take a long time for him to recover without proper medical attention… especially considering this is apparently a very nasty flu strain… with so many people in quarantine I doubt the staff will be able to take proper care of him… and he hates being ill…”

A very reckless idea suddenly came into his head. Usually he took no notice of such ideas, preferring to think things through properly, but Kim being ill was clouding his judgement and he knew it. Never mind – he would do it. It was reckless and stupid, but he would do it.

“I’m going into quarantine with him,” he announced.

“What, really?” Alix said. “You’d miss school on purpose, just to look after Kim? You? Missing school? On purpose?”

“Kim’s health is more important than school. I don’t trust the doctors here in this empire to look after him properly. He’s my best friend and I need to be there for him.”

“I’ll come too!”

Max shook his head. “No, you stay in lessons.”

“Excuse me? Kim’s my best friend too, you know, and I’m totally not using this as an excuse to skip school or anything… well okay maybe, but since you’re doing it–”

“You know perfectly well I can easily catch up on any schoolwork I miss. You have to stay here, though. Please?”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I guess they probably wouldn’t let me take my snake into quarantine with me anyway, and there is no way I’m leaving him alone for even a second now.” As if on cue, her pet cobra curled itself around her arm a little tighter.

“Oh yes, that dream you had…”

“Yeah, speaking of which, the rest of my holidays were really sucky too. The other day this thing happened where my hand suddenly–”

“I’ll hear about it later, I’d better get to quarantine as soon as possible,” Max said. “But you stay here and keep up with your work. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Without waiting for a reply he ran off.

“Wow, he seems eager to go hang out with a bunch of sick people,” Lila said, yawning.

“Well one of those sick people is our best friend, so yeah.”

“And what was that about a dream?”

“It’s nothing,” said Alix, holding her snake protectively close. “Just something I’d rather not think about.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, since it’s just us and Chloé here, want to start a girl gang?”

A girl gang sounded fun… but the only thing she could even think about right now was the snake. “Maybe another time. Sorry.”

“Oh, alright then…”

 

Max, meanwhile, had gone straight down to the medical centre and asked to be taken into quarantine. Everyone was surprised, but they did not refuse him. Perhaps because of his royal status.

He was taken downstairs in the “basement”, which still very much had a dungeon feel to it, and passed room after room full of ill students being tended to by the overworked staff. Finally they made it to the rooms reserved for royalty – just about enough of them that each class member could have their own room. Max burst into the last one to see Kim sitting up on the bed.

“Max!” Kim yelled, a huge smile appearing on his face. “You’re here! Unless I’m hallucinating? Apparently when you have a fever that happens sometimes… and apparently I have a fever…”

“No, it’s really me!” Max rushed over to Kim’s side. “I’ve already been vaccinated but I’m here to help you recover.”

Kim leaned over and enveloped Max in a big hug. “Bro… I’ve missed you so much... but wait… what about school and stuff?”

“You’re more important than school,” Max mumbled, feeling his cheeks warm up.

“You’re the best. You are, seriously, the actual best person ever. How long are you staying here for?”

“As long as you are.”

Kim hugged Max even tighter. “Oh, thank goodness. I think I need you right now.”


	27. Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad unite!

School felt surreal. The only royal classmates not in quarantine were Alix, Chloé and Lila, and at least three quarters of the nobles were not in attendance either. Many of the teachers weren’t even there. The corridors were so much quieter and emptier than usual. The mood everywhere was so sombre, almost like the remaining students were in mourning for their flu-stricken friends. No communication was allowed between quarantine and the rest of the school due to fears of contamination, so it really did feel isolating.

A few days after classes started, the royal class’s trade/production lesson was interrupted due to the sudden arrival of Adrien. Not even going to his dorm, he had come straight to the classroom with his backpack still attached, out of breath, looking exhausted and terrified.

“Adrien!” Chloé squealed, leaping out of her seat and running over to him so fast her elaborate rococo wig almost fell off. “What are you doing here? I thought your father said you weren’t coming back to school…”

Adrien hugged Chloé. “He didn’t want me to come back, but…” His voice was trembling.

“Wait, do you mean to say that you ran away from home?”

“He ordered Nathalie to lock me up in the palace! I couldn’t live like that, it was awful… I was going mad… and where’s Kim? I have to warn him – I have to tell him – his country–”

“Kim’s in quarantine,” Chloé said gently. “He caught the flu. Most of the school has. You know about the pandemic, right?”

“Yes I had my vaccination already. But can I go see him at least?”

“They won’t allow you to. The quarantine doors have been shut and won’t be opening for at least a month. Why, what were you going to tell him?”

“I know why it’s not safe for him to go home.” Adrien wiped a few tears away from his eyes. “Sorry, I’m just… I’m t-trying not to cry, but… I’m so scared… I had to take the train alone without a ticket and I got chased by a g-gang and… I just know my father will have sent guards after m-me… I can’t run any further because the transport is all closed due to the pandemic… and now so many people are ill with the flu…”

“Aw Adrien!” Chloé wrapped him into another powdery, perfumed hug. “We’ll protect you from your father’s guards, don’t worry!”

Adrien pushed her off him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Chloé! I want to be here at school with you but if g-guards really turn up here looking for me… are you really going to hide me from them? Against direct orders from my father?”

“Absolutely.” Chloé turned to face the other two and Lady Caline. “You’ll help me, won’t you?”

“Heck yeah,” Alix said, cracking her knuckles somewhat ominously. “We’re not gonna let you be kidnapped by a bunch of goons and forced back into house arrest. That sounds horrifying.”

“And what about you, Lila?” Chloé crossed her arms and glared at Lila, tapping her foot.

“I’ll help too,” Lila replied. “Adrien, whatever I caused between us last time… I’m sorry. But know that I do care about you, and I’m not letting anyone take you away against your will. Even if that person is your father.”

“So there you go!” Chloé said, turning back to face Adrien. “We’ll do everything we can to keep you hidden until your father cools down a little.”

Adrien burst into tears and buried his face in his hands. “You’re… the b-best friends ever…”

Lady Caline cleared her throat. “This is all very noble of you, I must say. But I’d just like to point out that… well, since you are royalty, your viewpoints may come across as representing your country’s stance on a certain issue, so if you refuse to hand over Adrien then that might be seen as an act of aggression towards the Agreste Empire, and they may retaliate…”

“Well they can’t take Adrien away if they never find him in the first place,” said Chloé. “If guards do turn up here looking for him then we just have to keep him hidden until they go away. That’s all.”

“And how do you propose that will work? Many people at this school, including nobles and teachers, would willingly betray Adrien to the guards for a sum of money or other bribe. Or even out of fear or loyalty to the Agreste Empire. You see, the people who don’t know Adrien very well do think of him the same way they think of his father, which is of course very inaccurate, but it means they might not want to hide him…”

“Then I will _order_ them to help hide Adrien,” Chloé huffed, straightening her wig and standing up as tall as possible. “I am an Imperial Princess and they should all obey me. And if not me, then… a certain marquise and pharaoh can help back me up, right?”

Lila and Alix nodded.

“I guess we really are a girl gang now!” Lila said. “The Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad.”

Adrien giggled a little through his tears. “A girl gang? Like… those groups of g-gangsters that go around mugging people in the middle of the night?”

“We’re not going to mug anyone, of course,” Chloé said. “That would be so peasant-like of… uh, I mean, it wouldn’t be very proper. Nothing against peasants, of course. I mean commoners. Nothing against commoners. Anyway, from observing my father, I have learnt that threats of violence are very effective without ever having to carry out the violence.”

“So you’re going to threaten people?”

“Not necessarily, since illusions of threats are good enough too. All we have to do is make sure Alix’s pet snake is with us whenever we talk to anyone, and no one will dare cross us at all. In fact, we don’t even need the snake – Alix herself is scary enough to do the job just fine.”

“What do you mean I’m scary?” Alix snapped, curling up her fists. A second later she burst into laughter. “Okay yeah, you’re right, I am scary… you should have seen all your faces just now, I can’t believe you’re all still terrified of me…”

“Yes, well, use your scariness against the weak-minded nobles, not us,” said Chloé. “Anyway, keep a lookout for the guards. The moment they arrive is when we have to start keeping Adrien extra safe. That will probably be a few days away. Until then, our mission is to make sure no one in this school is going to betray Adrien. Is all of that clear, Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad?”

The other two nodded.

“We need a secret handshake or something,” Lila suggested.

“That sounds rather childish…”

“But we’re a girl gang! We ought to have matching leather jackets and everything!”

“A leather jacket would certainly not suit the kind of clothes I pride myself in wearing, thank you very much…”

Lady Caline cleared her throat again. “If we’ve finished discussing what to do with Adrien for now then can we get back to the lesson?”

“Of course,” said Chloé. She took Adrien by the arm and guided him to a seat, and the lesson continued.

 

 

Over the next few days, the Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad began their duties. News of Adrien’s arrival had already spread quickly through what was left of the nobility, much like the pandemic that had taken so many of them out, so there was a lot of work to be done.

“Imperial Prince Adrien is a wonderful person!” Chloé said to Mireille rather enthusiastically, accidentally backing her into a corner. “If those terrible, awful guards come and take him away, we’d be robbed of such a great classmate! You’ve seen him, right? How precious and sweet he is? How could anyone wish harm on him like that? Please, oh please don’t turn him in if they ask for him! Please help us protect him! Have some humanity!”

Mireille looked up from where she was crouched to see the three rather fearsome royal figures standing over her, watching her every minute reaction. Imperial Princess Chloé seemed to be trying to put on a pleading, innocent expression, but still somehow looked as if she was ordering someone’s punishment. Marchesa Lila stood on one side, snapping her fan open and shut with surprising veracity, trying to put on a winning smile but looking somewhat unhinged. And then there was Pharaoh Alix, with that dangerous little smirk all the nobles were wary of, and that even more dangerous cobra wrapped around her arm, hissing and snapping its little jaws…

Mireille knew, logically, that these three would not do anything to hurt her. They were just her fellow students trying to stop their friend from being taken away.

But they were royalty. As such, they had a kind of power and influence that they didn’t even realize. It was clear they were trying not to just intimidate her into helping them hide Adrien from the guards, simply trying to be nice about it first, and yet…

They really were intimidating. Just the fact that these were three of the most powerful people at the school, and they had Mireille _backed into a corner…_ Even if she had wanted to disagree with them, she wouldn’t have dared.

Obedience through fear was not the best way of ruling. It caused uprisings. What would these three be like as leaders? Wait, the pharaoh technically already was a leader! How were the citizens of her country doing? Were they afraid of her too? And the other two, would they always use intimidation and force to get what they wanted?

“Well, are you going to help protect Adrien or not?” Chloé said, with barely restrained impatience.

“Yes!” Mireille’s own voice came out more like a squeak.

“Good. Make sure you tell all your fellow nobles too. Of course we will also be doing that, but…”

Mireille nodded. The three royals turned away and walked off, probably going to terrorize someone else next.

 

 

Quarantine really should have been boring, considering that there was nothing really to do there. Kim had indeed caught the flu and was suffering from all the common symptoms: blocked up nose, coughing, throwing up, aches, tiredness, headaches, a very high fever…

And he simply would not shut up.

Of course, Kim was usually quite a talkative person. The kind of person who would say things without thinking, always making it clear what was on his mind. But in this state, so ill and tired he was almost completely out of it, he seemed to have stopped censoring anything he was saying at all. It made things so much more entertaining.

The best part was, it seemed that everything Kim was saying or doing was so much more _affectionate_ than usual. These inner thoughts of his that he usually managed to keep hidden… they were so sweet. Mostly nonsensical, but sweet all the same.

“Max, you’re so cool!” Kim said suddenly, in the middle of the night. Max woke up with a jump from where he had dozed off in the chair next to Kim’s bed.

“Kim, you really should go back to sleep…”

“I can’t sleep, I just had a dream that there were these spiders in the room and they were crawling everywhere and I was throwing up spiders and… oh my gosh, it was awful… wait, was it a dream? Was it real? I don’t know. But you saved me, Max, you somehow magically opened a window in the corner of this room – which was somehow upstairs – and you threw all the spiders out…”

“It was a dream.”

“But you’ve saved me from spiders before, right? You’re so brave and awesome!”

Max couldn’t help but smile. “Kim… you’re brave and awesome too…”

“Yeah, but you’re also really smart. How cool is that? I must be the luckiest person in the world because someone as cool as you always hangs out with me! And you’re always so nice all the time… well you’re nice to me anyway… and you saved me from the spiders… oh wait that was a dream, right? But still, you would do it if it was real, you’re the Spider Slayer… the Spider Man… that’s you, Max…”

“You should stop talking,” Max said, a little reluctantly. “You said your throat is sore, talking will make it worse.”

“But I want to talk to you! You deserve to know how cool you are since no one else ever tells you. People just aren’t nice enough to you. I don’t get it! Why doesn’t everyone in the universe want to be your friend? You should have a million friends. Not just me and Alix. And everyone should be nice to you. If they’re not, I’ll fight them.”

Max didn’t even bother hiding his huge grin. “Oh Kim, I’ve missed you so much…”

“Same! I mean I missed you, not me. I was thinking about you like all the time in these holidays. Because you’re the best and I love you.”

That was just too sweet! Max tried to say something nice back, but his brain felt like it was melting right through his skull. He settled for giving Kim a pat on the arm. Kim, however, used this as an excuse to pull Max into another hug. He had been doing that a lot lately.

“Max, I’m so happy you’re here… thank you for going into quarantine with me… even though you’ll miss school and stuff… it means a lot to me…”

“It’s no problem, really!”

“I hate being ill. I hate it so much. But with you here it’s kind of easier to deal with, I guess. Just like my whole life actually… I wanna go home. I miss home so much it hurts, and I’m sick and tired of everything, and I just… Marinette was a great help, though. She’s awesome. Is she friends with you too?”

“I think she’s friends with almost everyone.”

“Good, because she’s such a good person. Like a helpful sister. She was always taking my mind off everything and keeping me distracted with fun stuff like tennis matches, village tours, bicycle races, awesome stuff like that. She tried to set me up with someone too, did you know that?”

Max shook his head.

“Well yeah, she did. There were these twins working there called Bluebell and Redbell and she suggested either one of them but… I don’t really know them well enough, I guess? I just wasn’t interested. More important things to think about… like you!”

“Kim you have a fever again,” Max mumbled, trying to pretend he wasn’t internally freaking out over every single thing Kim said about him.

“Fevers are good though, right? You said that the body raises its temperature on purpose to kill germs or something. That means fevers are a good thing. Yeah, those germs don’t stand a chance! My immune system is gonna kill every last one of them!”

“Hey, you remembered what I taught you!”

“Of course!” Kim nodded. “You’re the best teacher ever. Alix says so too, by the way! We one time were having a competition to see who could remember the most facts about like… atoms and stuff I think? I can’t remember now, I wasn’t concentrating…”

“Yes it was about atoms, I was there too. Remember?”

“I can never remember anything from back then, I was too busy trying to… uh…” He let go of Max and buried his face in his hands. “I was trying to impress her because I was an idiot. But it’s okay! I’m so over her like that! She’s my friend and I like her platonically. Definitely. Platonically, in a friendship way. And I was not thinking about her a lot this summer. Well I was, but friendship-ly. Yeah. Friendship.”

“Kim, it’s okay if you still–”

“N-nope! No way. She’s my best friend too and I’m not making it weird. Even if she is pretty hot. Not that I think she’s hot! Well yeah, but… I mean that from a platonic point of view. Friends can think stuff like that, right? It doesn’t mean anything if I’d like… make out with her if she asked… not that she’d ask, but… totally platonically, though…”

Max sighed. At least Kim was _trying_ to move on? That counted for something, not to mention being far too relatable in all the most painful ways. “Kim, you should go back to sleep,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…” Kim pulled Max into another quick hug. “Thanks for listening whenever I’m rambling like this. I’ve always been told that I talk too much when I’m ill and it’s all really stupid stuff so uh… well it makes sense to me right now. But if you have no idea what I’m talking about then just ignore everything I said. I’m such an idiot sometimes.”

“But you’re a lovable idiot, remember?” Max ran a hand through the floof of hair on Kim’s head, now droopy without hair gel keeping it up. “And don’t worry, everything you’re saying makes sense to me. You can ramble as much as you need to. I’ll always be here to listen.”

Kim took Max’s hand and held it tight. “You’re too good for me, Max, you really are… and you’ll protect me from spiders when I’m asleep, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“You’re the _best_. Goodnight, Max.”

“Goodnight Kim.”

Kim turned onto his side and closed his eyes. He hadn’t let go of Max’s hand yet, something that made Max so warm inside that he felt like he was the one with a fever instead.


	28. Don't be scared

Over the course of the next few days, the Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad became notorious throughout the school, though they were known as another name – simply the Girl Gang. Despite not actually having done anything other than talked to people, they were already highly feared by nobles and teachers alike.

Adrien himself had found that the nobles all seemed to be acting extra nice towards him these days, often looking around jumpily as if they were expecting the Girl Gang to be listening in and checking that they were appreciating him enough. It was actually quite unnerving. But still, it was better than when people hated him for his father’s actions. Clearly the Girl Gang had been making sure to inform people how different Adrien was, and how he would never do any of the things his empire had done recently.

Lila had kept in touch with the remaining members of Alya’s spy network and therefore they had a little extra warning time when the guards arrived one day.

“The guards are here!” Lila screeched, running down the corridor and banging on her friends’ doors. “Their carriage has just pulled up outside the school gates!”

Adrien, Chloé and Alix were all out of their rooms within a few seconds.

“Alright gang, our real challenge begins now,” Chloé said. “I think we’ve convinced all the nobles and teachers not to be traitors, so all we need to do is keep Adrien hidden from the guards.”

“They’re meeting with Duke Damocles first to discuss things,” said Lila. “If you want I can go eavesdrop. You can always hear what they’re saying if you climb off the music room balcony and then drop onto the office roof and listen through the vents. That way we might find out what order they’re searching the school in, if they’re allowed into student dorms or not, that sort of thing. It might help us.”

“Yes, go do that,” Chloé said, nodding. “Keep us informed and don’t get caught.”

“In the meantime just keep Adrien hidden in someone else’s room – pick the lock on Nino’s door or something, here–” Lila pulled a hairclip out of her hair and handed it to Chloé. “Do you know how to pick a lock?”

“Of course not, why would I–”

“I know how to do it,” Alix said, snatching the clip off Chloé.

“So do I!” Adrien said. “I could have a go too…”

Chloé stared at them all in disbelief. “You criminals! How do you know how to do things like this?”

“I’ve been trained in the art of lock-picking by a very famous spymaster,” Lila said. “In fact, I even–”

“Don’t you dare lie to me, Lila.”

“Oh alright, fine! Alya taught me! Anyway there’s not much time – I’ll rush back and tell you what I’ve heard, okay? See you later!” She turned and ran off.

“Good luck!” Chloé called after her.

Using the hairclip as a lock pick, they managed to break into Nino’s mostly empty room. Adrien tried not to think about the fact that this was _Nino’s_ room they were in. He missed Nino so much it was hard to bear.

“So how do you know how to pick a lock?” Chloé asked, frowning at the other two.

“I’ve been grounded a lot and perfected every method of escape,” Alix shrugged.

“Me too,” Adrien admitted. “Well, not exactly grounded, but… you know. Not allowed to go anywhere. Not allowed to talk to anyone.”

“Oh Adrien…” Chloé put a hand on his shoulder. “It must have been so hard for you this summer.”

“It really was! It was like being locked up in prison!”

“Well we’re never letting that happen to you ever again. Everyone deserves freedom.”

There was a sudden ringing noise from Alix’s sceptre.

“Guess I’ll answer my phone,” she muttered, going to the corner of the room and opening it while the other two barely paid attention, carrying on with their conversation. Fair enough – she had felt like a bit of a third wheel anyway considering that Adrien and Chloé were already good friends.

“Hello?” she said into the sceptre phone, hoping it wasn’t a call from anyone who was going to tell her off. Maybe it was Max – had he taken his phone into quarantine with him? Or did he leave too quickly to remember?

“Hi Alix.”

Oh thank goodness, it was just Jalil. “Hi Jalil. I haven’t got into trouble yet, I promise.”

“What? No, don’t worry! I wasn’t calling to tell you off or anything, I was just going to say… are you okay?”

“Um, yes? I had my flu jab and everything, I’m fine. Mostly everyone else is in quarantine but I’m still here.”

“Alright, well… I’m just checking…”

“Trust me, I’m fine. Are _you_ okay? You sound worried.”

“Oh, it’s no big deal…”

That definitely meant it was a big deal. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Seriously, what is it? If you don’t tell me then at least tell your friends or something, don’t just keep everything confined. We don’t want a repeat of that failed exam incident.”

“This is nothing like the failed exam incident! It’s just… well… you know that nightmare you had, about your snake? Let’s just say I had a similar nightmare.”

Ugh, that snake nightmare. She did not want to be reminded of that. Almost instinctively, she gave the snake on her shoulder a reassuring stroke. There was no way she was letting any harm come to it.

“So, you had a nightmare about my snake dying,” she said.

“Not exactly. It wasn’t the snake who died. It was, uh, someone else very important.”

“Let me guess, it was me?”

“Yep.”

“Well don’t worry, I’m perfectly fine and definitely not dead.”

“I’m glad to hear it. But please just be careful, okay?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve never been careful in my life, ever, and nothing’s ever gone wrong. It’ll be fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“I know, I know. It’s just creeping me out a lot.”

“Sounds cool though. How did I die? Was I beheaded? Was it guillotine or axe or what?”

“I don’t even know. I don’t remember much, just that somehow you died, and I wasn’t there to help you or anything. It was really creepy.”

Alix laughed. “Of course it would be creepy if I suddenly died. I’m your coolest sister ever, right?”

“Well, you’re my only sister…”

“Exactly. And maybe your subconscious is just trying to remind you of that. _‘Jalil, be nice to your sister because she might suddenly die!’_ Yeah, maybe this means you should be nicer to me! Send me loads of sweets or something!”

“You know what, I think I actually might do that. But only on the condition that you start being more careful.”

“Okay, fine,” Alix lied. “I won’t go cartwheeling along the balcony railings if that makes you happier.”

“Good. Anyway I have to go. Take care.”

“You too, nerd.”

She hung up. Honestly, how weird… as if she was going to die suddenly, that was ridiculous, her brother wasn’t psychic or anything…

But what about the dream she’d had where her snake died? That had been so vivid and terrifying, affecting her so irrationally compared to other nightmares. And now the same thing had happened to Jalil, but about her instead.

She only laughed it off so that Jalil wouldn’t be too worried. He was always such a jittery, anxious sort of person, he didn’t need that kind of burden in his life. And anyway, her snake was fine, right? So she would probably be fine too. It was only a nightmare. A weird one, sure, but just a nightmare.

_Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared. Don’t be scared._

She was not afraid of anything or anyone. Yep. Definitely. And she was not going to die.

Best to just forget about this all for now and focus on protecting Adrien. Maybe later she could ask Master Fu about all this, if things were still weird. Maybe it had something to do with whatever had happened to her hand near the end of the holidays.

_What if my hand’s going to get cut off and I die from it?_

The thought hit her mind before she could stop it. Amputations, gangrene, blood poisoning… all sorts of terrifying things flashed through her mind. That succession crisis that was going to happen after her rule, what if that would be because she died too soon? Maybe it had nothing to do with a lack of heirs after all?

Whatever it was, it was too much to think about right now. She turned around and went back to Adrien and Chloé, who were busy carrying on their conversation without paying any attention to her.

 

After a while there was hammering on the door.

“It’s me, Lila! Are you in there? Let me in quick!”

They opened the door and allowed Lila in, then shut it and locked it behind them.

“Alright, I’ve found out some useful things,” Lila said, not even bothering to sit down anywhere. “First of all, the guards have been ordered to stay here for at least a month to find Adrien. It’s not just a quick search and then leaving. If they don’t find him, they’ll stay and keep looking, over and over.”

“Yep, that sounds like something my father would order,” Adrien muttered.

“Which means we have to keep Adrien hidden and keep the nobles under our thumb for at least a month. Also, the guards don’t have clearance to look through the rooms of students who aren’t in quarantine. Not yet, at least. Chloé, they’re seeking permission from your father to do that and he’ll probably say yes.”

“Of course he will,” Chloé sighed. “He’s always sucking up to the Agreste Empire.”

“So for today, the guards will be searching through the rooms of everyone who’s in quarantine. That includes Nino. Which means we have to get out of here and into one of our rooms as soon as possible. And once the guards have permission to search anywhere they want, we’ll just… I don’t know… have to smuggle Adrien around to stop them finding him…”

“They can’t look through my room no matter how much permission Chloé’s dad gives them,” said Alix. “I’m kind of a reigning monarch and everything, remember? Just hide Adrien in my room whenever the guards are around and I’ll forbid them from going in. Simple.”

Lila nodded. “Yes, I think that might actually work!”

“Let’s waste no time!” Chloé stood up and linked her arm up with Adrien’s. “Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad, our real mission begins now. Keep the guards away from Adrien for an entire month. Let’s go!”

 

The first few days were not that difficult. Adrien spent most of his time with the Girl Gang, hiding out in one of their rooms while the guards were noisily rifling through the empty dorms, easily avoidable. Since they caused so much ruckus it was easy to get Adrien to and from classes too, since the guards always made it so obvious where they were.

Things began to get a little more difficult once the guards obtained permission from Emperor André to search wherever they pleased, including dorms currently occupied by students. Most of the nobles were terrified of these big, burly guards, bursting their way into everyone’s rooms unannounced, demanding that Adrien be handed over. Many were starting to think it would be easier just to turn Adrien in so that life would go back to normal.

However, one evening Adrien risked capture when he saw that a noble was crying over his pet cat being stuck in a tree. Adrien climbed the tree, rescued the cat, then ran to hide as quickly as possible just before the guards reached the area. All without his Girl Gang supporting him.

News of Adrien’s kindness spread throughout the nobility like an epidemic, quickly twisting out of control. At first everyone was merely happy to hear that Adrien was willing to help animals. But soon tales began spreading of far more interesting feats, such as Adrien lifting up a crashed chariot with one hand to rescue a baby stuck underneath, or Adrien bringing back someone who had been thought to be dead just by touching them.

None of it was true, of course. All Adrien had done was rescue one tiny cat. But the rumours could not be dispelled, and it in fact worked to his advantage – the nobles were now adamant that Adrien should not be turned in. He was a saint, a precious hero, he must be protected at all costs!

It took the guards several days to thoroughly search through all the nobility dorms. In the meantime Adrien had been spending most of his time in the royal areas of the school, surrounded by the Girl Gang who made sure he could easily be hidden at a moment’s notice. The nobles helped out greatly – they arranged a series of bird call signals to pass messages across distance about where the guards were and what they were doing. Adrien was able to avoid many close shaves this way.

The teachers helped out too, simply shrugging and saying that they had not seen Adrien at all this year whenever the guards questioned them. It was a lie, since Adrien had been attending classes as much as he could, but thankfully the brave teachers had decided to band together and protect him the same way the students were doing.

Finally the guards moved onto searching the royal dorms. The Girl Gang hid Adrien inside Alix’s room and hoped she had enough royal power to be able to stop the guards searching in there.

“Your Majesty,” the head guard said to Alix, as she stood outside her door with her arms crossed, “we have been instructed to search every area of the school for Imperial Prince Adrien. It is a matter of his safety. Would it be possible that we could enter your room and…”

“Nope.”

“But it is an order from our emperor–”

“I said nope.” She glared at them. “I’m not having you snooping through my stuff, thanks.”

“But we must find Adrien. He could be in there.”

“Um, excuse me, are you accusing me of hiding him or something?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then go away. He’s not in there, go look somewhere else.”

The guards were all frowning, looking at the door suspiciously. They must have known perfectly well that Adrien was hiding in there. But being unable to do anything about it, they accepted defeat and went off to search somewhere else.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, down in quarantine, Kim was finally recovering from the flu. It left him feeling exhausted, miserable, bored… but at least he was getting better. He was going to be fine. Thank goodness.

He knew when he had been high on a fever he had said a lot of things to Max, lots of unrestrained, unfiltered things that came straight from the heart. It was kind of embarrassing to think about now. He was not meant to be the cheesy, gushy type!

Still, it was true. He had been so glad to see Max, so glad Max was there with him. At first he had just assumed it was because he had missed Max a lot during the holidays, so of course the thought of being able to finally spend time with his best friend made him feel happier than usual.

But the thing was, those feelings were not going away. They were getting _stronger_. Every morning when Kim woke up, he was so grateful to see that Max was right there with him. It just gave his heart a little spark. Had it always felt like that? Or was he still tired from the flu, and it was messing with his brain?

Never mind. The important thing was that Max was here, and that made Kim feel very happy indeed.

“How much longer until we can leave quarantine?” he asked one morning, feeling much better than he had the previous day.

“Maybe a week or two,” Max said. “I’m not entirely sure. It must be soon, though.”

“Oh, good. I hate it in here. I feel so weak.”

“You’re probably still stronger than me.”

Kim grinned. “Yeah, of course. I bet I could lift you with one hand.”

“Please don’t.”

“Okay, I’ll lift someone heavier with one hand then! How much do you think Marinette weighs compared to you?”

“She’s probably lighter.”

“Yeah…” Thinking about Marinette suddenly reminded Kim of things he didn’t want to think about. “I’ll probably have to go back to Cheng for the winter holidays, won’t I? I just get the feeling that whatever’s going on between mine and Adrien’s countries isn’t gonna be sorted out for a while. So I’ll keep having to go back to Marinette’s kingdom, over and over again…”

He sighed, feeling too miserable all of a sudden.

“At least Marinette’s nice, I guess. But it’s not the same as being home. I’ll have to find some way of not being homesick all the time while I’m there… oh wait! Redbell!”

Max chuckled. “One of those twins Marinette was trying to set you up with?”

“Yeah! Look, I know romance will not solve my problems, but don’t you think it would be cool if I could get a… girlfriend? That’s what the commoners are calling it these days apparently. More specific than just saying ‘sweetheart’. Yeah, girlfriend.”

“Or a boyfriend,” Max muttered, not quite looking at him.

“Yeah, true. In fact it’s kinda weird, but when I think about when I was younger, and there was this guy I knew – some royal guard’s son or something – I always felt weird around him and I thought it must be jealousy or admiration or something. Since he was really cool. But now, looking back, it might have been a crush, and I just didn’t consider that was possible…”

“Sounds familiar,” Max said, still not looking at him.

“And this whole time I just didn’t know. But now I do, and that’s better I guess.”

“Good for you.”

“Anyway, there’s more important things to think about now,” Kim said, something just having occurred to him. “How am I meant to catch up on all the schoolwork I’ve missed while I’ve been down here?”

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll help you. Most of the school’s in quarantine anyway so almost everyone will have to catch up. It won’t just be you. The teachers will go easy on you. In fact, I’m pretty sure many of them are in quarantine too!”

Kim breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I was worried I’d have to stay up late every night doing homework. Thank you, Max.”

“No problem.”

“Seriously though, thank you.” Kim felt that happy feeling rushing back into him again, and he didn’t bother to stop it. “It would have been so much worse without you here. I wish I could just… I wish I could let you into my brain so you could see how awesome you are from my point of view!

“Kim, that’s very sweet of you…”

“And I realized something too! You remember that thinking fountain, the one that always makes me feel calmer and smarter and stuff? Well it’s not the fountain that does it, it’s _you!_ I’ve tried doing homework there without you and it’s not the same. Yet while you’ve been here with me in quarantine this whole time it’s felt the same as when we’re at the fountain together…”

He trailed off, noticing that Max looked somewhat shocked.

“Max, are you okay?”

Max looked down, failing to hide a grin. “I just… rather like it when you give me such nice compliments. Please keep going.”

Kim laughed. “Okay then, I so will!”

 

 

It was coming to the end of October and the guards were still at the school, having outstayed their original plan of one month. They were clearly very determined to catch Adrien out. Mr Damocles had hastily cancelled both sports day and the autumn ball, saying that there was no point when so many students were in quarantine.

Smuggling Adrien around everywhere was getting tedious. The guards were also getting sneakier, launching surprise raids everywhere at all times of night. The Girl Gang did not leave Adrien’s side for an instant, often having four-people-sleepovers in Alix’s room just to be on the safe side. The guards continually asked her if they could search her room, and she defiantly refused every time. It was obvious that they really disliked her. But there was nothing they could do.

It was interesting, though, how close the four of them became when there was no one else around for them to talk to. Adrien and Chloé had already been very good friends, but now Lila was being far more honest with them about everything, and was genuinely an enjoyable person to be around without even having to show off or make herself seem special. She had a heart of gold.

As for Alix, she tried to put all her energy into protecting Adrien from the guards. Any time she didn’t, her mind started going back to all the weird things that had been going on – the snake nightmare, her hand, her brother being worried about her… No, she had to distract herself.

The good thing was that she seemed to have somehow acquired some kind of protective instinct over Adrien. For some reason the thought of someone being a hunted fugitive from house arrest just creeped her out almost as much as all the other weird stuff did. She wasn’t even sure why. She just really, really, _really_ did not like the idea of house arrest. There was no way any friend of hers was going to have to go through that.

 

Finally, one evening, the guards announced that they were leaving. It was about time! Their carriage set off down the road leading away from the school, and everyone rejoiced. Adrien could run around wherever he wanted, to his heart’s content, without having to fear being captured at any point or needing his friends to protect him. The first thing he did was announce that he was going for a walk around the school grounds. He had been cooped up inside for far too long.

Then disaster struck.

“Girl Gang, we’ve got an emergency!” Lila yelled, hammering on her friends’ doors. “Adrien’s in danger!”

The other two ran out of their rooms as quickly as possible.

“The guards haven’t actually left yet!” Lila said. “My nobles have only just found out about it! Apparently the guards just sent off the carriage, pretending to leave, and they’ve been hiding in wait for Adrien… he’s in the school grounds and they’ve got him… they’re going to take him away! We can’t let that happen! We have to go stop them!”

“What are we going to do?” Chloé said. “We can’t just go against armed guards! Do we have much time?”

“No, they’re going to take him away immediately! We have to hurry!”

“But what can we do? The guards have their orders! Oh poor, poor Adrien! He was so looking forward to freedom!” Chloé turned to Alix. “You! You’re a pharaoh, you can command the guards to stop, right? Or something? _Please?_ ”

“That won’t work!” Lila said, putting her face in her hands. “Not letting them search your room was one thing, but telling them to go against their direct orders when they’ve already got Adrien… that’ll never work… they’ll never listen… not even to a pharaoh…”

Alix cracked her knuckles. “I’m not just any pharaoh, though. I am _Alix_. If I want someone to be scared of me, they’ll be scared of me. Even if they are royal guards. I have to try.”

“Are you sure? What if it doesn’t work?”

“It’ll work. I will _make sure_ it works.”

Her snake reared up with its hood out and fangs bared, sensing the determination in her voice. The other two stepped back a little in alarm.

“We’d better get going then,” Lila said. “Come on, follow me!”

The three of them ran out into the school grounds. It was cold and dark out here, drizzling slightly, and there weren’t many people around. There were a few lights in the distance – the guards with their lamps. As the Girl Gang got closer they could hear Adrien pleading with the guards to let him go.

“Please, just tell my father you didn’t find me! He won’t know!”

“Sorry Your Imperial Highness, we have to follow our orders.”

“But I don’t want to go–”

“We will have to use force to take you if you do not cooperate.”

The main guard had his sword out, and the others were backing Adrien into a corner.

“Quick, do something!” Chloé whispered. “Me and Lila will stay hidden here… neither of us have enough power to do much…”

“Fine.”

Alix marched over to the guards and stood right between them and Adrien. They looked surprised to see her – and somewhat annoyed too.

“Please step aside, Your Majesty, we have a prince to take care of.”

She put her hands on her hips and tried to stand up as tall as possible, not that it made much difference. “That’s a very interesting way of saying you’re going to kidnap him. Which is essentially what you’re doing.”

The main guard rolled his eyes and raised his sword slightly. “I am afraid we have our orders from Emperor Gabriel himself, so would you please just let us take Adrien already? We would hate to have to use force.”

“Oh, you would hate to have to use force, would you?”

Without even thinking about what she was doing, she simply grabbed the sword by the blade with her bare hand, wrenched it out of the guard’s grasp, and threw it to the ground.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Your Majesty–”

“I am _not_ letting you take away Adrien! If you even dare, I will tell everyone about how Emperor Gabriel is such a terrible father that his own son ran away just to escape, and that he sent guards after him to kidnap the poor kid and take him away from his education. I don’t think that would go down well in the international community considering that half the world is already on the brink of declaring war on Agreste. So just leave now and tell your emperor that you never found Adrien. Don’t even _think_ of crossing me, the leader of the most advanced country in the world, unless you want my snake’s fangs sinking into your flesh and every country in the International Alliance tearing you apart!”

She almost surprised herself at how chillingly commanding she sounded. Her snake hissed at the guards, rising up to full height and extending its hood.

The guards were silent, staring at her, looking shocked. She stared back, _daring_ them to defy her.

After what seemed like a full minute, the main guard finally took a step back.

“Fine,” he said. “We will speak of this to no one.”

“Good.”

He picked up the sword, then he and the rest of the guards turned and left.

Phew… had that really happened? Had she really intimidated a bunch of _trained royal guards from the Agreste Empire_ enough that they obeyed her, against direct orders from their leader? She was that powerful? It didn’t feel real.

She turned and grinned at Adrien, who still looked worried for some reason. “You’re safe now!”

“Alix… your hand…”

Looking down at her hand, she noticed it was bleeding. Oh yes, of course – she had forgotten that she grabbed the sword blade, and the adrenaline meant she’d barely even felt it. Seeing the bright red blood sticking out in the darkness seemed to shock her into feeling it now though. It stung. A lot.

“We have to take you to the medical centre,” Chloé said, running over from her hiding place with Lila. “I don’t know if anyone will even be there or if they’ll all be in quarantine, but…”

“There’s at least one nurse still there,” Lila said. “We’d better go now before it’s closed for the night.”

“Does it hurt?” Adrien asked.

Alix shook her head. “Nah, not much.”

That was a lie. It did hurt quite a lot. What was worse was that she couldn’t help but wonder – was this how she was going to die? It was an injury to her hand, after all! What if it got infected and killed her?

But no, it couldn’t be this. For starters, it was the wrong hand. And whatever had happened in the holidays, that had definitely started on the back of her hand. This time she’d cut it right in the palm. The pain didn’t feel the same at all.

Thank goodness.

The group went to the medical centre where there was indeed one nurse still there, who washed and bandaged the wound. It still hurt a lot but the pain was subsiding now. In that case it was certain – this was nothing to do with the pain in her hand from the holidays. And she was not going to die from it. Not today, anyway.

They returned towards the dorm corridor. Chloé and Lila had been clinging onto each other in worry, and they still hadn’t stopped clinging. In fact, they had been getting progressively clingier in general over the past few weeks. They really did seem to get along well. The two of them were walking along so slowly that Adrien and Alix decided, without even needing to speak, to just leave those two behind to do whatever they wanted without anyone else getting in the way.

“I guess you can finally sleep in your own room for once,” Alix said. “Honestly I’m getting sick of sleepovers. Everyone snores loads and I’m not really a people-person in general, so…”

Adrien nodded, still looking somewhat glum.

“Dude, what’s wrong? You okay? The guards are properly gone now, you’re safe!”

“I know. I just… I don’t even know how to thank everyone. You’ve all done so much for me, and I don’t want anyone getting into trouble just for me, and… even the nobles have been so sweet… and y-you hurt your hand trying to p-protect me…”

Oh no, was he crying? He had already cried enough over the past month – everyone could see his red eyes, hear him quietly sobbing away into the night. Usually Alix was not good at dealing with that at all, but right now her protective instinct kicked in so fast that she had wrapped him in a hug before she even knew what she was doing.

“You are an awesome classmate, an awesome friend, and an awesome prince,” she said. “You don’t deserve to be a fugitive from your own family. So yeah, that’s why we’re protecting you. Okay?”

“Mhm.”

“And I don’t want to be the kind of person who’d just stand by and not do anything if I have the power to actually make a change. I have to do my bit to help. If I can’t protect people I care about, if something happens and I didn’t do anything to stop it, I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself…”

The truth was, she wasn’t even thinking about Adrien. She was thinking about her snake. The nightmare was coming back to mind, and the only thing that could keep her from bursting into tears too was telling herself that she would do everything in her power to protect that snake, no matter what. Even if it meant a cut to the hand or two.

Or worse.


	29. Homesick

After what felt like a lifetime, quarantine was finally coming to an end. Everyone who had caught the flu had recovered, and those who hadn’t were confirmed to have become immune to it. The exhausted, overworked medical staff took their last rounds to check that everyone was indeed back to full health and that the virus would not spread any further. Then came the long-awaited announcement – the quarantine period was over.

In order not to flood the school, the students were let out in small groups. The royalty class were let out first, since they needed to go attend their oracle sessions. Kim could not be happier to finally be up and about. Being stuck in that one room all day, lying in bed with nothing to do, it was so boring!

“Come on Max, let’s go for a run outside!” he said, grabbing Max’s arm and trying to pull him along a bit faster.

“We don’t have time for that right now,” Max said. “We were told to go straight up to the waiting room to see Master Fu.”

“Yeah okay fine, but we can go for a run later, right? Surely even you must be itching to run around and actually do something for once!”

Max chuckled. “Yes, for once I really am.”

“Wait, really? That’s awesome!”

Max laughed even more, such a sweet little laugh that Kim was suddenly hit by the strange urge to just pick him up in his arms and cuddle him. It wasn’t even the first time – this seemed to happen every time Max laughed now.

Trying not to feel too overwhelmed, Kim just looked aside and said, “Well then, let’s go to the oracle sessions first, then we can go for a run.”

“Excellent idea, Kim.”

Excellent idea? He could feel himself blushing. Maybe Max wasn’t the only one who liked getting compliments from his best friend.

They went up to the waiting room together where they saw Lila just outside the door, looking bored, snapping her fan open and shut absent-mindedly. Her face lit up when she saw them.

“There you are!” she said. “I’m so happy to see you! You’ve missed an awful lot, you know.”

“Why, what happened when we were gone?” Kim asked, a little hesitantly. Was she lying again?

“So much. Adrien’s father had him locked up, but then he escaped and came to school. Then guards showed up and tried to take him back, so me, Chloé and Alix formed a girl gang and protected him. So did the nobles and the teachers, actually. Then the guards found Adrien and tried to take him away. But Alix single-handedly scared them off with a little help from her pet snake. Also she accidentally cut her hand by grabbing one of the guards’ swords and throwing it away. It was amazing. And I’m also now dating Chloé.”

Kim tried not to let the disbelief show on his face. “Okay, that’s… very interesting…”

“You don’t believe me, do you?” Lila’s tone changed to something much more fiery. “I should have known. But I’m telling the truth, you can ask any of them yourself! Max, you believe me, right?”

“Of course,” Max said quietly.

“Well you don’t sound very sure about it! Ugh, just go into the waiting room and talk to everyone about it already!” She folded her arms and turned away.

Kim and Max entered the waiting room to be greeted with a very heartfelt, teary scene. Chloé was hugging Sabrina tightly in the middle of the room and wailing about how much she had missed her, how sorry she was to have always taken her for granted, that from now on she’d try to actually be a good friend and treat Sabrina like a person rather than a servant, all sorts of very un-Chloé-like things. Everyone was watching with expressions that ranged from happy to embarrassed.

Someone suddenly leaped up onto Kim’s shoulders from behind, clinging onto him like a piggyback ride. Judging from how little the person weighed, Kim could tell exactly who it was without even having to look.

“Oh hey Alix, it’s you again,” he said.

“Are you kidding me? I haven’t seen you for like 18 years and all you have to say is ‘it’s you again’? You ungrateful friend!”

“It’s only been a few months! And anyway, what was I supposed to say?”

She waved her bandaged hand in front of his face. “How about ‘well done for saving Adrien’? Lila must have told you about that, right? She said she was going to.”

“Wait, so that actually happened?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, right…”

“Anyway, is it true you got the flu? Did you die?”

“Of course I didn’t die!” Kim snapped. “I had Max with me. No one can die with Max looking after them, it’s impossible.”

Max, who had been laughing away quietly to himself at the ridiculous sight of Alix hanging off Kim’s shoulders, abruptly stopped and looked down at the ground. “I wouldn’t say it’s impossible…”

“Of course it is!” Kim insisted, remembering how much Max liked compliments – and how happy it made him to see Max happy. “The medical staff were so busy looking after everyone else they didn’t even have time for me. But I had you, so I’m okay. You’re the best.”

“I think it’s my turn to have my oracle session now,” Max mumbled quickly, walking off towards the door with a huge smile on his face.

“I hope this one goes better than last year!” Kim called after him.

 

 

Though it had been a full year since he had been here, Max remembered this room perfectly. It hadn’t changed at all. Neither had Master Fu.

“So, what is your question?”

To tell the truth, he wasn’t even sure. He had plenty of questions floating around his mind, but none really stuck out as important. All he knew was that he wanted to ask about something to do with his country. He had to, because if he didn’t, he’d probably end up asking about Kim, and…

No. No making things more painful than they needed to be.

“Is my country going to go to war at any point within the next ten years?”

There, that was a good question. He had to admit, everything going on between Agreste and Lê Chiến did cause him worry. At least when he was a proper grown up and ruler then he would be able to deal with it much better, but for now he just wanted to know if he and his family were going to be safe. A war would not be pleasant, but asking about it might give him some warning time if it was inevitably going to happen.

Fu put his hands on the turtle shell for a few seconds, then his wrinkled face formed a smile. “You’ll be much happier with the answer you get this year. Your country will not go to war within the next ten years.”

“Really? Oh, thank goodness!”

That was certainly a weight off his mind. Without even waiting for Fu to offer, Max jumped up and took a few complimentary mints from the bowl. He really was in the mood for going for a run now, for once, like the good news had given him energy. Perhaps Kim would say more ridiculously nice things to him. He had been doing that a lot lately, and it felt good.

“I’m glad you got the answer you wanted,” Fu said. “Now time to call in the next person – will it be that friend of yours? The one with the pet snake?”

“I believe so,” Max said, remembering that Alix had gone after him last year.

“Right,” Fu said, his smile turning to a frown for just a second. “I think I already know what she’s going to ask.”

“It’s about her snake, isn’t it?” Max said. It must be that, considering how protective of the snake she had been during the summer holidays after that nightmare.

“We’ll see,” Fu muttered. “We’ll see.”

 

 

This time when going for the oracle session, Alix took her pet snake along with her. There was no way she was letting it out of her sight now. And anyway, considering her question was to do with the snake, she may as well bring it along. She needed answers.

“So, what is your question?”

Fu did not sound enthusiastic this time. The way he was frowning, it was like he already knew what she was going to say.

She had thought long and hard about what to ask. Since she couldn’t ask about the past, a question like ‘what was the meaning of the dream I had in the summer?’ wouldn’t cut it. And she wouldn’t be able to ask about whatever had happened to her hand in summer either. It would have to be something else.

There were so many things she wanted to know, it had been almost impossible to narrow it down. But the snake was the most important thing.

“How long is my snake going to live?”

She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know the answer, but the dream was still haunting her so much. If she didn’t find out the truth, she would never get any peace.

Fu did not even need to put his hands on the turtle this time. He simply folded his arms and said, “As long as you will.”

So… she and her snake had the same lifespan? But snakes didn’t live long, so that meant…

“What, am I going to die when I’m like 30?”

“Not necessarily.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s somewhat… complicated.”

“How is it complicated? I just want to know when my snake’s going to die so I can be prepared!”

Finally Fu put his hands on the turtle’s shell for a few seconds, looking into the future. Then he sighed. “You didn’t have a very good summer, did you?”

“No, it was awful. I had this really weird nightmare that my snake got beheaded, except it was less like a nightmare and more like a vision. And then this thing happened where my hand suddenly–”

“Alright, fine, you don’t have to tell me the details. I just wanted to make sure that my suspicions are correct.”

“What suspicions? What’s going on?”

“It’s too much to explain right now. I can answer all your questions, but I will do it later. We don’t want to hold up the other students. If you visit me in the evening then I will tell you everything.”

So there really was something sinister going on after all. She knew it – she _knew_ it had been more than just a nightmare! And now, finally, she would be able to find out the truth.

“Thanks, I’ll be back later,” she said, standing up to leave.

“And keep a very close eye on that snake of yours in the meantime.”

The snake, on instinct, curled its tail up around her arm.

“I will,” she said. “I would protect him with my life.”

“Good. Just what I thought.”

 

 

Kim, back in the waiting room, was feeling quite pleased with himself. First of all, he actually had a sensible question to ask this year.

_When will I be able to go home?_

Not only would it put his mind at rest, but it would also give him an indication as to when all this conflict with the Agreste Empire would end. It was not just a question that would help him personally, but it would help his kingdom too. No silliness this time! He was actually going to be a decent prince for once.

Secondly, he had noticed rather thankfully that Alix leaping onto his shoulders unannounced had not given him a heart attack like it would have several months ago. Of course he was so happy to see her again, considering how long it had been, but it didn’t really feel the same as it used to. He was just glad to be able to hang out with his friend again. Maybe he was over her then? He hoped so.

Thirdly, Max was actually happy with his answer this time! He had rushed out of the oracle room after his session and started gushing to Kim about how pleased he was that his country was going to be safe, at least until he would be more prepared to deal with it, and how much of a weight off his mind it was… It was so sweet! And Max had even decided that this time he would wait for Kim, and afterwards they could go for their run together. It really warmed his heart.

For some reason.

The two of them waited for Alix to finish her oracle session. She had told Kim all about what happened in the summer holidays while they had waited for Max – about the dream she had about her snake dying, and whatever weird thing had caused her hand to hurt so much. Hopefully she would be able to get an answer from Fu about what it all meant.

When she came back into the waiting room, she did not look happy.

“Apparently the answer is too long so explain right now so I have to go back later,” she said. “Anyway, it’s your turn now, Kim.”

Yes, at last. He would finally be able to find out when he would be able to go home!

He walked into the familiar oracle room and sat down in front of Master Fu, who greeted him politely.

“So, what is your question?”

This was it. Within a few seconds, he would know.

Just thinking about it suddenly gave him a pang of homesickness so strong that tears started filling his eyes. How long would it be before he could see his family again? All those people working in the palace that he had made friends with? The familiar palace walls, the rooms, the courtyards, the training facilities? The unparalleled scenery that the kingdom was graced with?

He pictured himself asking Fu the question. He pictured himself getting an answer. He tried to imagine it being something manageable, perhaps a few more months or so. But his brain pushed other scenarios into his head.

_A year._

_Three years._

_Five years._

No… surely not. That was far too long to wait. Of course he would be able to go home soon. Better to just ask and get it out of the way.

He opened his mouth to speak…

Then closed it again. His throat felt dry.

_Ten years._

_Twenty years._

No way. He couldn’t get an answer like that.

Could he?

_Fifty years._

_Eighty years._

But what if this conflict with Agreste never ended? He had heard of wars that had gone on for decades. Centuries, even. Wars that lasted long after the people who started them had died. Long after everyone had forgotten the reasons they were even fighting.

What if the same was to happen this time?

To get an answer like that…

_Ninety years._

_A hundred years._

**_Never._ **

It was too much. He couldn’t ask that.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. He looked down at the floor, wishing a portal would just open up and magically take him home. He wanted it more than anything.

“It’s alright, I understand,” Fu replied. “You want to ask something very important, but you fear the answer. It is very common.”

“What should I do?”

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss. Perhaps you should just pick another question – something that you won’t mind so much if you don’t get the answer you were hoping for.”

“So you mean something stupid? Like last year?”

“Well… perhaps something that is on the line, which wouldn’t quite be considered a waste of a question, but would still be useful to know the answer to.”

Kim tried to think, but his mind was blank. There wasn’t really any other question he wanted an answer to.

He thought about having to return to Cheng again and again, every holiday, for weeks, months, years on end. Having to stay with Marinette’s family for the rest of his life. A prince without a kingdom.

Wait a second!

Cheng… Redbell…

A stupid question?

Yes. A _very_ stupid question. But it was better than nothing. And certainly better than being told he would never be able to go back home.

“Am I gonna get a girlfriend this year?”

Fu just stared at him for a few seconds. Then he said, seemingly a little exasperated, “By ‘this year’, do you mean between now and the end of December, or between now and the end of the school year?”

“Uh… now and the end of the school year.”

Fu put his hands on the turtle shell, then sat back and sighed.

“Well, at least this time you can get your hopes up.”

So it would happen? Yes! Something to actually look forward to!

“But no, you’re not going to get a girlfriend this year. Certainly not.”

What…?

“Then why did you tell me to get my hopes up?” Kim asked.

“You’ll know.”

“But–”

“You’ll just know. Like last year’s question.”

Oh yes, that… Kim tried not to blush. Just thinking about that was far too embarrassing. What an idiot he had been. Not that he was much better this year, though.

“Fine,” he said. “Thank you anyway.”

“Would you like a complimentary mint on your way out?”

“Yes please.”

Kim took two out of the bowl – one for him, one for Max – then he left the room.

Before he could even get to Max, however, Adrien ran right up to him and stopped him.

“Kim, I really have to talk to you!” he said. “While I was stuck at home I found out a lot about what’s going on between our countries. I meant to tell you earlier, but there was the whole quarantine thing, and…”

“Wait, you know what’s going on?”

“Yes! Some of it, anyway. Do you want me to tell you?”

“Yeah, please do!”

Adrien explained everything he knew – about how his father was going to return some land to Lê Chiến as a peace offering but had actually stolen all its natural resources and was only returning it because it was useless to him, how the Agreste Empire was trying to take even more land just to get richer, how troops from Agreste had been making the borders of Lê Chiến too unsafe to be traversed even by peaceful merchants and travellers.

“…and I didn’t know what to do! I wish I could have helped, but I have no power at home, so I just… ran away…”

“Hey, it’s okay.” Kim put a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “Thanks so much for telling me.”

“It was the least I could do.”

“We’ll fix this someday. And then both of us will be able to safely go back home.”

Adrien nodded, his eyes full of tears. “You’re right. Everyone’s done so much to help me get this far, and I’m not giving up now. I’m going to sort out my empire’s problems and be the first decent leader in a long line.”

“That’s just what I like to hear!”

“Anyway, I think I need to go now, I told Marinette that we could… I mean… uh, nothing! Never mind. See you later, Kim!”

He ran off towards his room. Kim turned to Max and held out the mint.

“I got one for you too. And don’t ask about my oracle session. It was… really unimportant.”

“Thank you,” Max said, taking the mint. “And I’m sure whatever it was you asked, it must have been important to you.”

“No, it wasn’t. That’s the thing. I was supposed to ask something important, but I chickened out, and…” He put his head in his hands, starting to regret not just going for it.

“Will going for a run cheer you up?”

Kim looked up again to see Max smiling at him in a way that made all his worries seem to melt away. He smiled back and said, “Yeah, it totally will. Let’s go!”

 

 

Alix had not waited for a second after her oracle session. She went straight back to her room and called up her brother.

“Jalil, how long do queen cobras live?”

“Er, hello to you too, Alix,” Jalil said. “And off the top of my head, I think it’s about 20 years. Why do you ask? Did you get an answer from Master Fu?”

“Barely. Anyway, can you actually look it up for me? Please? I just really want to know.”

“Alright, give me a minute…”

There was a break on the other end as she heard him rifling through some books.

“Okay, it says here that in the wild they usually live to be about 20-25, but in captivity they can live as long as 30 years.”

“And I got this snake when I was 3, right? How old was it back then?”

“I don’t know, probably the same age as you?”

“The same age as me… right…”

Fu had said that the snake was going to live as long as she did. And if it was born around the same time, too, then…

What did that mean?

“I don’t know what my dream meant yet,” she said, “but I’m going to go see Fu later and demand proper answers from him. I have to know what’s going on.”

“To tell the truth, I’d like to know too. I’m very intrigued now.”

“Don’t worry, I promise I’ll tell you everything. Maybe I’ll find out what your dream meant too.”

“Oh, and are the others out of quarantine yet?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Didn’t you say that Max went in to specifically be with Kim? How did that go? Did anything happen?”

Alix couldn’t help but laugh. “I know perfectly well what you’re getting at. You want Kim to fall in love with Max so that he doesn’t end up with me. Well don’t worry ‘cause I already turned him down. But no, he and Max are not a couple.”

“Fair enough. I just hope that child ends up with someone who won’t be a complete disaster for him.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Anyway, if that’s all for now, I need to get back to my homework. I’ll talk to you again once you’ve got answers from Master Fu.”

“Yeah, see you later.”

She hung up the call.

Huh… Kim and Max…

So she wasn’t the only one who thought those two would be a great couple. They clearly got along very well, and Max’s level-headedness perfectly balanced out Kim’s overly energetic attitude. It would make sense.

But life didn’t make sense, did it? And if those two were into each other then surely they would have already got together. Max was smart and would have figured out a way to win Kim’s heart, and Kim was a reckless idiot who wouldn’t be able to hide his feelings for long. Max wasn’t the oblivious kind of person who would miss something like that. They would have got together ages ago.

But they hadn’t. Clearly there was nothing between them in that case. Fair enough. Otherwise she would definitely try to help them get together! But if there was no need, then why bother…?

 

 

The evening run was short. Max kept tiring out far too quickly and they kept having to stop for breaks. It wasn’t long before Kim decided that perhaps that was enough for today, and maybe they should just go back inside and have a rest.

“How do you do that every single day?” Max asked as they slowly walked through the courtyard together.

“It’s fun, that’s how! And I’m used to it. I’ve been training as an athlete for as long as I can remember.”

“That’s very commendable of you.”

Kim did not know what that word meant, but hearing the pride in Max’s voice made him feel rather funny inside. “You’re really, uh, _commendable_ too.”

Max chuckled. “It just means admirable.”

“Well yeah, you’re that.”

“Aww, Kim…” Max looked away and changed the subject. “I hear they’ve finally completed work on the nearby reservoir. They had to stop during the quarantine.”

“There’s a reservoir nearby?”

“Yes, a huge one. While you were in your oracle session I was talking to Lady Caline about it. She worries that they rushed to fill it up too fast to make up for the quarantine break, and now the sudden stress on the underlying ground might cause seismic activity.”

Seismic… now why was that word familiar? Oh yes, of course!

“Earthquakes!” Kim said. “Are you telling me that earthquakes can be made by reservoirs? I thought they were natural?”

“They usually are, yes. But human activity that puts pressure on cracks or fault lines can cause earthquakes too, even in parts of the world like this that don’t usually get earthquakes. And the problem is that buildings here were not built to withstand earthquakes, since they didn’t need to be. If one happened here, it would not go down well.”

“I hope that doesn’t happen then…”

Kim knew what earthquakes were like, they were fairly common in his kingdom. Usually not very big ones. They were a bit scary, but usually things were alright.

“It’s not very likely, it’s just a possibility,” Max added. “And I doubt it would happen straightaway. Though talking a lot about it is probably what people would call tempting fate.”

As if on cue, a low, rumbling noise began emanating from the ground beneath them. Within a few seconds the entire courtyard was shaking violently. Kim and Max crouched in the corner, only to see a huge pillar collapse into rubble right in front of them, barely missing them.

The shaking did not last very long. After about 30 seconds it subsided and left clouds of dust everywhere. Kim tried to stand up but hit his head on something above them, so he just sat down again, trying to wave all the dust away.

“I’d say that was about a level 5… do they use the same earthquake measurement systems in other places? We have a system back home and it was probably a… hey Max, are you okay?”

Max was hugging his knees to his chest, looking up at Kim, worried. “So that was an earthquake?”

“Yeah.”

“I’d never felt one before…” He reached his hand up under his glasses and wiped a little tear away. “That was terrifying.”

Kim thought back to the earliest earthquake he could ever remember experiencing. He had been terrified too, so terrified of aftershocks and buildings crashing down on him that he had stayed up all night, curled up in a ball, shivering. Poor Max must be going through that right now.

“Oh Max, it’s alright! You’re safe now. Let’s get out of here.”

The dust had mostly settled by now, revealing that the unstable courtyard pillars had toppled over into each other and caused destruction everywhere. One had fallen to rest just above their heads, which explained why Kim did not have enough space to stand up, and another had crashed into pieces in front of them and blocked their way. Kim tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t budge. There was no way he could do it alone. Not even with Max helping him.

“Are we stuck?” Max asked.

“Nah, surely not, we just… uh… yeah. We’re stuck.”

Kim glanced over at Max to see that he was still hunched over, seemingly on the verge of tears.

Something suddenly hit him.

Seeing Max so scared like that, so afraid… it _hurt_. Like a physical pain in his chest. It was almost unbearable.

Without stopping to think, Kim shuffled over and hugged Max close.

“It’s okay, we’ll get out of here soon! Someone will definitely find us. And at least it’s over for now.”

“What about aftershocks?” Max mumbled.

“They’re usually smaller, it’ll be fine. And I’m here with you, right? I’ll protect you, I promise. You helped me when I had the flu, and now it’s my turn to help you.”

Max cracked a grin. “Kim… you really are commendable…”

Kim just hugged him even tighter, wondering if that would calm the adrenaline that suddenly seemed to be hitting him. That was probably because of the earthquake, right? Then why was it not stopping?

A voice came from somewhere beyond the rubble.

“Hello? Is anyone stuck there?”

That sounded like one of the members of staff!

“Yes, we’re stuck in the corner!” Kim called back.

“Don’t worry – we will have you out as soon as possible! Just wait right there!”

There were footsteps of several people coming forwards and helping move away the rubble. Thank goodness.

“We’ll be fine, Max, I promise,” Kim said.

“You’re right,” Max said, smiling up at him. “Thank you.”

 

 

Most of the school was still completely intact after the earthquake. Alix barely even cared – she was just glad that her snake was still fine. Anyway, it had been long enough now. Time to return to Master Fu and get some answers.

She took the snake with her and walked down the corridor to see Adrien at his door, waving off Marinette who was walking away backwards, waving back rather dreamily. He spotted Alix and smiled brightly at her.

“Oh Alix! The most awesome thing just happened!”

“An earthquake?” she said, not in a good enough mood to stop herself sounding rather sarcastic.

“No, not the earthquake. Well, kind of. You see, I told Marinette she could hang out with me and we could catch up, since she was in quarantine before so we couldn’t, and we were together in my room when the earthquake hit. And then on a whim, thinking we were going to die, I told her how much I love her. And guess what? She loves me too!”

So Adrien and Marinette were together now? Alix’s first thought was _finally!_ Those two had liked each other for ages, it was so obvious that even she had noticed. At least the earthquake had been good for something if it had got them together.

“Good for you,” she said. “You two are perfect for each other.”

“I know, right? She’s so sweet and wonderful and talented! And she told me that if I want, I can stay in her kingdom for the holidays so I don’t have to go back into house arrest!”

The thought of house arrest gave her cold chills, even worse than usual. She ignored them and said, “That’s awesome.”

“Yeah, it is! Oh – I have to tell Nino!”

Without even saying bye, he ran off down the corridor and started hammering on Nino’s door. Alix just carried on towards the oracle room, feeling a little apprehensive now. What on earth could Fu be telling her that was so time-consuming to explain? It was about time she found out.


	30. Chronolines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for 100 kudos!! Anyway, here's the first chapter that just... doesn't have Kim in it. At all. The name of this fic is a lie.

The oracle room felt different at this time of evening – though that may have been because of the scented candles that were everywhere. Fu was feeding Wayzz bits of lettuce and cucumber when Alix entered.

“Ah, so you survived the earthquake!” he said in an overly cheerful voice, not even looking up at her.

“Didn’t everyone? It wasn’t a very big one…”

“It was certainly bigger than the one that will happen here in about three years’ time. That one will probably be caused by the collapse of a nearby mining cave. I don’t foresee anyone dying in that one either.”

“Whatever.” She sat down on the other side of the turtle, her precious pet snake draped around her neck. “I’m not here to talk about earthquakes. You said you’d tell me what’s going on with my snake and weird dreams and whatever, so please do.”

Fu sighed. “Are you sure you want to know? As I tell many students, ignorance is bliss sometimes. In your case, what I am about to tell you won’t necessarily make you happy. In fact, it’s likely to do the opposite.”

“I don’t care, I just want to know.”

“Fine.”

He put down the piece of lettuce and sat back.

“As you know, I have the powers of being able to see into the future. Most people think this is something unusual, but the truth is that many people have unique powers that seem unexplainable. They just never discover them and therefore never use them. In my youth I did a lot of research on all the different types of powers that people could potentially have – weather manipulation was the most common, and ability to control luck was the least. Many students here at this school have latent powers, something I can detect. I usually inform them in their third year – though I make exceptions for weather manipulators. I’ve already informed Aurore and Mireille of their local weather powers, and I’m sure they have a lot of fun with that.”

“Aurore and Mireille can control the weather? That’s so cool! But what does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m getting there. For most people, their powers are very weak. Neither Aurore nor Mireille can do much other than summon a few raindrops or keep a single cloud at bay. However, some people have much stronger powers, since their powers are linked to an animal – like a guardian spirit of some sort. For me it’s my turtle, Wayzz. He and I are linked, and therefore my oracle powers are strengthened beyond what they would be if I wasn’t connected to him. His lifespan will match mine. If I die, so will he. And if he dies, so will I. We must protect each other. That is the burden of having such strong powers.”

Their lifespans would match? Just like Alix and her snake. But that meant…

“Are you telling me I have secret superpowers or something?” she said, unable to stop herself grinning. Ignorance was bliss, was it? No way – this sounded awesome!

“That’s one way to put it, yes.”

“That is so cool! So what powers do I have? Do I have laser vision or something? Please tell me I have laser vision.”

“You don’t have laser vision.”

“But it’s something cool, right?”

“That depends on how you look at it,” Fu said, oddly calm in the face of her excitement. “From seeing your future, and from what you’ve told me, I can deduce that you have what I call timeline powers.”

“Time travel?!”

“No, not time travel! Timelines. There are plenty of alternate timelines that exist, and most people have no way to access them. But it seems that you have the ability to see the events of other timelines.”

“So…” She tried to make sense of what he was saying. It was all too vague. “I’m basically psychic?”

Fu shrugged. “If you want to call it that, sure. Anyway, it explains the odd things that happened to you this summer. Since you didn’t know about your powers, you never consciously tried to use them, but you were already subconsciously doing it without realizing. That’s why you sometimes have weird dreams or unexplainable bouts of emotion – it’s the events of other timelines bleeding over into your mind. For example, if something bad happened in another timeline, you might have dreams about it or feel unreasonably upset about it without knowing why.”

Was that it? Then everything that happened this summer was because bad things were happening in other timelines? Was that how it worked? It was all so hard to take in.

“And I know these powers don’t seem as special as controlling the weather or having laser vision,” Fu continued, “but they can certainly be very useful. You can learn a lot about yourself, learn from mistakes you made in other timelines, that sort of thing. But a warning: you might not like what you see in other timelines. These are the kind of powers that can easily drive someone mad. That’s what I meant by ignorance is bliss.”

So. She had superpowers, supposedly. It still wasn’t sinking in.

That dream she had of her snake dying, that must have been something that happened in another timeline then. So it wasn’t a vision. Or was it?

“You still haven’t properly told me how long my snake is going to live,” she said.

Fu blinked, surprised at the sudden change in topic. “It will live roughly as long as you do. It’s your guardian animal.”

“But you said that if the snake dies, I die. And snake lifespans aren’t very long. So–”

“Its lifespan will extend to match yours, don’t worry. You have no more chance of dying at 30 than anyone else. So if you live a long, prosperous life, then so will your snake. I’m not going to tell you the exact age you will die but I can promise you it’s longer than a normal snake lifespan.”

So her snake wasn’t going to die in the near future. Or even the far future. And if it was going to die when she did, then she would never have to live without it.

The relief that hit her was enough to make her feel dizzy. The snake, as if it could read her thoughts, nuzzled its head against the side of her face. This snake, this precious queen cobra… it was magic! How cool was that? It was going to live way longer than any normal snake, it was psychically connected to her, she could use it to see other timelines and laugh at whatever stupid stuff all the other Alixes were getting up to…

But wait.

If her snake had been beheaded in one timeline then… surely that meant that she must have died too in that timeline? And what about that dream Jalil had about her dying? Wait – did he have those powers too?

“I think my brother also has timeline powers,” she said. “Can I tell him about it?”

“You can tell anyone you want. They’re your powers. And it is common for them to run in families, though multiple siblings having the same powers is fairly rare.”

In that case she was definitely telling Jalil everything. And she definitely had to try out her powers too. It sounded like the coolest thing ever.

One thing was still playing on her mind for now, though.

“So if my snake dies,” she said, “would I just drop dead on the spot? What would happen?”

“There is actually very little research on that,” Fu said. “It seems that once someone’s guardian animal dies, _something_ will happen to them in the following weeks that will kill them too. The stronger the person’s fighting spirit is, the longer it will take for them to die, but the longer they will suffer. And within a few weeks, they will be dead. No matter what.”

Well, that was cheerful. A long, drawn-out death? At least she had cool superpowers to make up for it.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” she said to Fu, standing up. “I’m gonna go test out my powers now.”

“I wish you luck. Use them well.”

She was just leaving the room when he spoke again.

“Oh – I just remembered! Have you heard of the butterfly effect?”

She nodded. Of course she had heard of it, sci-fi movies did indeed exist in the world and she had seen them. It was something to do with a tiny change in original circumstances causing drastically different outcomes. There were plenty of time travel movies about it. Someone would go back in time, accidentally change one tiny thing, and come back to a world that was unrecognizable.

“In that case keep a lookout for it,” Fu said. “It might explain some things.”

Right. This timeline business was at least a little bit like time travel, wasn’t it? She loved time travel movies. This was going to be so much fun!

 

Sitting at the desk in her room a few minutes later, she got out a pen and paper, ready to write about the things she was about to find out. If other things were happening in other timelines, that might make for awesome movie ideas in this one. She remembered last year Nino being rather inquisitive about how to make movies. Maybe she could give him some ideas and he could make one himself.

“Alright,” she muttered to her snake, who seemed to have the same determined expression on its face as she did. “Time to explore some timelines.”

Now that she knew about it, it wasn’t even difficult. All she had to do was close her eyes and think about it.

There! It was like watching a movie. Or maybe like a weird dream. She could consciously look through the events of other timelines with almost no effort. And it was so much fun, just like she’d expected it to be! In one timeline she’d lost a Monopoly game much worse than she had lost it in this timeline, ha, take that! And in another timeline she hadn’t even adopted her pet snake until this year? Come on, that was ridiculous! Clearly she was the most superior version of Alix out of all the timelines. These other ones all just seemed like dorks.

Wow, it really was just like watching a movie. These other timelines, they were just like her normal life, and yet… some things were _different_. Memories that were slightly off. Things she didn’t quite remember having happened, or that had happened differently. Little changes here and there.

Or sometimes big changes.

Yes… some things in the other timelines seemed to be very different indeed. Events that had flat-out not happened at all in her normal life. People acting differently. The other versions of herself acting differently. And not always in a good way.

As she looked further and further into the other timelines, one thing was becoming clear.

Bad things had happened in those timelines.

She’d had a nasty summer after all, hadn’t she? It seemed that the other timelines were the cause of her miserable state of mind. Those other Alixes, their summers had been a whole lot _worse_.

Ignorance is bliss… that was what Fu had told her. And maybe he was right. Maybe she should just stop now, rather than finding out what her life could have been like if things had gone wrong somewhere down the line. Maybe it would make her unhappy if she knew the truth.

But there was no way she could stop. Her morbid curiosity got the better of her. Going through the timelines one by one, she started writing down everything she could about them on the piece of paper. Maybe that would put her mind at ease somewhat.

 

_-There seem to be three other timelines I can look at and they’re all really depressing, ugh, but I gave them nicknames anyway: Death Timeline, House Arrest Timeline, Escape Timeline_

_ DEATH TIMELINE _

_-So in this timeline for some reason this version of me didn’t have a pet snake, I guess she never went to that snake pond at night when she was a toddler or something_

_-And then at some point during the year – spring holidays I think? The timeline memories are kinda wishy-washy – she finally went there and adopted him, but had to keep him as a secret pet and didn’t tell her family about him_

_-At the start of the summer holidays she got grounded for some reason, I don’t know why, it kinda makes me feel nauseous when I try to figure it out so I give up_

_-And then her poor snake was discovered but they didn’t know it was a pet, they thought it was just a normal dangerous snake that got into the palace somehow, so it was beheaded. That explains why in my normal timeline I had that bad nightmare about it. It really did happen. Just in another universe._

_-Naturally, when she saw that her pet had been killed, she was so grief-stricken she uh… well, threw a hell of a lot of temper tantrums, that’s for sure. Everyone thought she’d gone nuts and put her under house arrest and wouldn’t let her talk to anyone. They even sent away Jalil. No wonder I missed him a lot in the summer, even though he was right there, and no wonder I didn’t want Adrien to go back into house arrest… maybe I subconsciously knew how bad it felt._

_-That’s not the worst part. The painful, grisly, nasty, agonizing death by snake bite a month or two later was the worst part. She managed to escape house arrest but yeah, ended up being bitten by a venomous cobra, and it did not end well. At least that explains why my hand hurt so much that one night near the end of the holidays. But if all I felt in this timeline was a fraction of the pain, then how much worse would it really have felt…? Okay that’s kinda haunting_

_ HOUSE ARREST TIMELINE _

_-So in this timeline, at the oracle session, Fu told this Alix that there won’t be a succession crisis after her rule, and she was understandably pretty annoyed about that_

_-She also got grounded at the start of the summer holidays, I still don’t know why? The memories are so fuzzy and I’m trying to see but all I’m getting is that… she was like… told that she was forcibly betrothed to someone for some reason…?_

_-Oh heck it wasn’t just anyone, it was Kim, okay wow (still don’t know why she was grounded though)_

_-Anyway since she was still annoyed about the answer she got at the oracle session, she was just pretty miserable all summer and at the end of the holidays when she wasn’t allowed back to school, she tried to escape but failed. (At least the snake lived this time!)_

_-So yeah, that timeline version of me is still alive, but stuck at home with no contact with anyone, not even Jalil, and also is apparently going to marry Kim. Oh, I just can’t wait to see his face when I tell him about that in this timeline!_

_ ESCAPE TIMELINE _

_-Seems like everything here is roughly the same as in the House Arrest Timeline, except that Fu gave the answer that yes there will be a succession crisis after her rule, so during the holidays she was way more rebellious about the house arrest thing and especially about the marrying Kim thing_

_-At the end of the holidays she actually managed to escape and get back to school, and I guess she’s still there? Just like I am? But she can’t go back home now because she knows she would be under much closer watch this time and not allowed to escape again, so I guess she’ll have to find some way out of this. Huh, that’s kind of like Adrien’s situation._

_-Oh wait, that really IS like Adrien’s situation – seems like she became much closer friends with him than I did, because of it. The only reason she isn’t a hunted fugitive like him is because she’s a pharaoh rather than like, a princess or something, so her kingdom’s not exactly allowed to send guards to kidnap her. But other than that it’s literally the same as what happened to Adrien._

_-Okay so she bonded with Adrien over their shared sucky lives, way more than I did in this timeline, seems like she was really overprotective of him too, even Chloé and Lila didn’t talk to him that much in comparison_

_-And then after the earthquake earlier it looks like instead of talking to Marinette, Adrien talked to her instead, and–_

 

She stopped writing abruptly. No way… no way! First Kim, and now Adrien? But Adrien told her he liked Marinette! He and Marinette even got together earlier! He was going to stay in her kingdom for the holidays and everything! So then… how?

Without even thinking, she stood up and went over to Adrien’s room as quick as she could, knocking on his door rather loudly. He opened it quickly.

“Oh hey Alix, what’s–”

“You’re definitely in love with Marinette, right?”

Adrien didn’t reply for a few seconds, slightly taken aback. “Well yes, of course…”

“No one else?”

“No, definitely not! I got over Kim a long time ago, I promise!”

Kim? Pfff, it wasn’t Kim who Adrien had confessed his love to in the Escape Timeline. And it wasn’t Marinette either!

“Is something wrong?” Adrien asked, concerned.

“No, I was just, uh…” She scrambled to think of an excuse. “…want to set Kim up with someone, so… I was just checking…”

His face broke into a relieved smile. “Oh, good! I was hoping nothing was wrong. Maybe things are actually starting to go right these days.”

“Yeah, in this timeline.”

“What?”

“Nothing. See you later.”

She walked off again, leaving Adrien standing there rather bewildered.

 

Back in her room, she carried on her notes.

_-Turns out Adrien has a crush on the Escape Timeline version of me. And she doesn’t mind. She did tell him she doesn’t like him back like that, but still. She doesn’t mind. And she told him that too._

_-I guess he’s not into Marinette in that timeline then. I honestly can’t wrap my head around that. How the heck do crushes work, anyway?? Why can’t I ever get one???_

_-Anyway, she has to marry Kim in that timeline, so it isn’t like Adrien would have a chance even if she did impossibly like him back like that. I still can’t figure out why she was forced into a betrothal with Kim, though, in all three other timelines, since clearly that didn’t happen this time. I didn’t even get grounded! (For once in my life.)_

_-Whenever I try and work it out, it’s all fuzzy and hazy, like my brain’s trying to block it out or something… I think it’s something to do with the spring holidays? That the other timeline versions of me didn’t take the snake to the pond that time when teaching Kim to rollerskate, and so he didn’t get distracted, and… he asked for that stupid mistletoe kiss…_

_-Oh my god, I think she agreed to be his sweetheart?? For like two days or something?? I’m gonna throw up_

_-Is that why she got grounded? Because let’s be real, dad would definitely ground me for something like that. But forced into betrothal too? I’m still missing something here. And I’m still gonna throw up. I’m feeling pretty glad I turned Kim down in this timeline, that’s for sure. Friendship is underrated._

 

She put the pen down, her hand starting to cramp up from writing so much so quickly. Alright, maybe Fu was kind of right about the whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ thing. These other timelines were both weird _and_ depressing. Did she just live in the best possible timeline then? The one where she wasn’t a fugitive, wasn’t under house arrest, wasn’t forced into marriage, wasn’t _dead?_

Unable to stop herself, she looked back into the Escape Timeline. What was her timeline twin from there doing? After all, both of them were at school. Surely the twin must have also asked about the snake at this year’s oracle session, and got the same answer. And that meant that she could access all the timelines too.

But wait… surely that meant… they could communicate with each other? Across timelines? By both accessing each other’s timeline at the same time?

Alix was not sure she even wanted to speak to her weird timeline twin. But the next thing she knew, she could see the twin in her mind’s eye, glaring right at her rather stubbornly.

_“You’re just lucky. You know that, right?”_

The twin had spoken to her. The voice was the same as her own, yet somewhat more… malicious. Unwelcoming. And full to the brim with bitter jealousy.

_“You’re lucky that you live in the best timeline. Don’t think I don’t know that you’re laughing away at the misfortunes of the rest of us, planning to tell your friends about it as if it’s all some kind of joke.”_

Could she speak back? She may as well try.

“I’m not laughing at you, and I definitely don’t think it’s a joke.”

Yes, she could speak back. The twin narrowed her eyes.

_“But you’re still not taking it seriously. You **died** in one of the timelines. Very nastily. And things are not going very well for me or the one who’s under house arrest.”_

“Well what do you want me to do about it? I can’t exactly do anything from here to improve your life for you! Just, I don’t know, get your friends to help you? Like…” She cleared her throat. “Imperial Prince Adrien?”

 _“Don’t you even talk about him,”_ the twin snapped. _“I know what it’s like to go through what he’s been through. You have no idea. You’ve barely even made proper friends with him. Unlike you, I actually care about him.”_

“Um, I grabbed a sword blade for that guy. I very much do care about him.”

_“But you don’t understand him. If you did, he would have fallen in love with you too. But anyway, that doesn’t matter – I told him I just want to be his friend. It’s not like I’ve got any other friends.”_

“What about K–”

_“Kim and Max? Oh please. You know why I can’t be friends with them.”_

“Because of the betrothal thing?” she asked. “Surely that’s no reason to stop being friends with them?”

_“No, you idiot, I can’t talk to them because it’s too awkward now. Which you would know if you actually bothered looking through more of the timelines than just that horrible morbidly fascinating one where you died by snake bite.”_

“What do you mean it’s awkward? Is this because of the mistletoe kiss? It didn’t make things awkward for me! And I did try looking at other stuff in the timelines, but it was making me feel sick, so I stopped.”

The twin had a rather wicked expression on her face. _“You naïve, innocent little sunflower. You are so oblivious, and I’m keeping it that way. Listen – I’ve made stupid mistakes in my timeline and it’s messed up my life. The only reason you haven’t done the same is because you’re lucky enough that your circumstances were different, entirely by chance. So learn from my mistakes without having to suffer through them, okay? Don’t count on luck to always save you. If the timelines branch again then you might find yourself on the unlucky ‘bad ending’ side next time.”_

The twin gave her one last glare, then disappeared again.

Wow, she seemed pretty insufferable. No wonder she only had one friend. But perhaps her advice hadn’t been so bad. Learn from the mistakes of other timelines…

Alix picked up her sceptre and dialled a number.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jalil, do you have time right now? I have something very long and important to tell you about…”


	31. Home Sweet Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually had this one ready earlier but I was waiting for the end of the ML Blackout to post it. Content theft is bad, kids. Anyway, have a hefty dose of Kimax just because I can :D

Max sat in his room at his desk the next day, quickly rifling through the science journal he had brought from home. During the quarantine he had completely forgotten to look through it, and if he didn’t send it back to the palace library back home today then he would have to pay fines for returning it late. Of course, being a prince, no one was really going to care whether he paid fines or not. But he knew he would feel bad about not returning it on time.

Earlier that morning, Alix had told Max and Kim all about what she had found out yesterday. Timeline powers? Guardian animals? It was fascinating! Max had come straight to his room to check if there would be anything about that in the science journal. Surely there had to be some kind of logical explanation, right? Superpowers couldn’t just be magic. Someone must have researched about it.

But it seemed that there were no articles about superpowers. In fact, none of this year’s articles looked particularly interesting. It seemed like everything cool that could be discovered by science had already been discovered, and everything left was just too hard to explain.

Wait… what was this?

Max had a skim over an article that had caught his eye. It was not about superpowers, no… but it was relevant all the same. Not to him, but to Alix. He had to tell her about this!

But not now. This science journal had to be sent back home. If he didn’t hurry, he would miss today’s post. Maybe he could just lend it to Alix in the next holidays or something instead. Yes, that was a good idea.

He headed down to the school postal office and dropped the journal off, then went off to the library to meet up with his friends. There was a fair amount of school work to catch up with after the quarantine, and supposedly Alix had decided to help them out with it, but that seemed unlikely. Knowing her, she would probably get bored and tell them to just do it by themselves.

Sure enough, when Max got to the library with all his textbooks and paper, neither Alix nor Kim had even made a start on any work at all. Instead they were making paper aeroplanes and seeing how far they could throw them. Max couldn’t help but chuckle to himself at the sight – his friends were such dorks sometimes. No matter what sort of serious things were going on in their lives, it would never stop those two from having fun.

“Oh hey Max!” Alix said, waving at him as he came to sit down beside them. “Notice anything different?”

Max shook his head. “You two seem just as silly as usual.”

She held her hand up. “No, look – my hand’s healed! The bandage is off now. I’m so happy, now I can go back to beating Kim in arm wrestles.”

“Hey, that’s not true!” Kim said, throwing a paper plane right at her head. “You don’t stand a chance against me when it comes to arm wrestles.”

“Oh really? That’s funny because I definitely remember winning almost every single arm wrestle we’ve ever had…”

“But that was before… well…” Kim blushed and crossed his arms. “That was back when I liked you, so of course I lost, I was distracted and everything. But I would so win now!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

“Alright then!” She pushed her sleeve up and put her elbow on the table. “Prove it. Right now.”

“Wait… right now? Aren’t we meant to be doing homework and stuff?”

“Oh, so _now_ you care about homework…”

Kim rolled his eyes. “Fine. But I’m definitely gonna win, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. Max, you be the judge!”

Max nodded. He was used to doing that already. In any case, he knew perfectly well that Alix was only doing this in order to procrastinate on doing any actual work – something that happened fairly often. Or at least, she used to do it a lot before the holidays and the quarantine. It had all seemed such a long time ago. At least now things were going back to normal, just how they used to be last year.

Max waited for them to be ready, then counted down and started the arm wrestle. No one won straightaway. Kim and Alix seemed to be evenly matched. Max had an inkling that had it not been for the flu weakening him, Kim would probably have won already. Alix’s strong point was speed, after all, not strength, whereas Kim focused on both.

Hmm… it really was evenly matched. Max tried to predict who would eventually win. Well, it seemed like the angle that Alix’s elbow was at was much more comfortable than Kim’s, but endurance was something that Kim was good at, so perhaps he would be able to keep his strength up for longer… but then again, he was still exhausted from the flu, whereas Alix was still rather proud of the whole “scaring off the royal guards” incident which might provide her with extra strength as a kind of placebo effect…

Max couldn’t help getting a little distracted. Kim’s arm! It was just so nice to look at. From an aesthetic, scientific point of view of course! Biceps, triceps, yes… it was science. At least that way Max had an excuse to stare at it. He was studying it, of course. Scientifically. Yes.

Wow, he was not good at lying to himself at all. This was nothing to do with science. Or perhaps it was, but not in the way that he had been trying to fool himself into. Brains did release certain chemicals when in love.

“Aha! You’re going down!”

Max was snapped out of his thoughts to see that Kim had gained the upper hand, finally. Predictably, he was wasting some of his energy gloating about it.

“Not so fast!” Alix said, rather a waste of energy too. “Look! It’s a spider!” She quickly pointed somewhere above his head with her other hand.

“Nice try, Alix. Max – is there a spider there?”

Max suppressed a grin. “No, there is no spider there.”

“Exactly. So don’t think you’ll be able to distract me into losing again this time!”

Alix smirked. “Distract you into losing? That’s a good idea! Thank you, Kim!”

“Wait, what? No, I meant…”

“I mean, if you always used to lose because you were distracted at how cute I am, the joke’s on you. I’m still cute.”

“No you’re not,” Kim snapped, though he seemed to have weakened slightly.

“Yes I am! I don’t look any different than I did before, right? And you once said I was hot, and since I look the same, therefore I must still be hot. Therefore, I can still distract you. It’s science.”

Max put a hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing. That was the loosest definition of “science” he had ever heard.

“See, it’s working!” Alix said, grinning even more evilly than before. Sure enough, they seemed to be stuck at a stalemate again with no one clearly winning or losing. “That’s awesome, I didn’t even think it would work, I was just messing around… but clearly I am much more powerful than I seem…”

Kim put on a grin of his own. “I once learnt from Max, who is way cooler than you are, that hotness is subjective. And therefore, I’m allowed to not find you hot anymore. It’s also science.”

Max almost wondered if he should interfere – he knew perfectly well that Kim was bluffing. If there were two people in the class who Kim still found attractive despite not being interested in them anymore, it was Alix and Adrien. Perhaps even Chloé too. It seemed that all the people Kim had been into were able to match him in looks.

In any case, Max decided to keep quiet. This match was already hilarious on its own.

“But I can still distract you by reminding you of how much of a dork you used to be,” Alix said. “Hey, remember that time in the spring holidays?”

“Oh come on, don’t bring that up, that’s cheating…”

“Remember the sports bra incident?” Alix went on, ignoring him entirely. “That was so funny, you should have seen how flustered you were…”

The memories seemed to be making Kim flustered once again, considering how red he had gone and how annoyed he looked. Max was about to start laughing before he remembered the other half of that ridiculous day in the spring holidays – the moment when he had gone to visit Kim, and come across him not wearing a shirt. The thought made his own cheeks warm up so much that he hid his entire face behind his hands, hoping the other two were too busy to notice.

And how stupidly obvious had he been? Stuttering like an idiot? Gawking at Kim’s bare chest like some kind of moron? Running off with a nosebleed? He could only be grateful that Kim still did not know what the word “gay” meant, otherwise Max wouldn’t even be able to look at him without wanting to die inside. That would be far too embarrassing. As it was, he had spent the rest of that day moping around in a daze of lovesickness, not even able to keep his emotions to himself when talking to Kim on the phone later. Thank goodness he had it all under control now.

He put his hands down again, watching the match once more. It was still stuck at a stalemate – though that seemed to be on the brink of changing.

“In fact,” Alix said, with such a wicked smile on her face it was almost scary, “you have a thing for sports bras, right? What if I told you I’m wearing one right now? Is that distracting enough for you?”

Kim was starting to falter. “Yeah, right… You’re just saying that…”

“Oh what, do you want me to take off my top and prove it or something? Or would you just melt on the spot?” She laughed, clearly having far too much fun with this. “Because I know you did, back in the spring holidays, you weren’t even subtle, I know I’m really oblivious but even I was starting to suspect that you spent all day holed up in your room because you were like… making out with a pillow and pretending it was me or something…”

“How did you know about that?” Kim snapped.

“What? Wait, are you serious? I was kidding! Are you telling me… you were _actually_ doing that?!”

Kim was losing now, that was for definite. His face was bright red. “N-no… well kinda… maybe… yes, fine! At least I’m admitting it!”

“That’s… that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard… Kim, you are so much more of a dork than I ever even considered… A _pillow_ , honestly! Did you talk to it too? Did you pretend it was wearing a sports bra?”

This was utterly ridiculous. Even more ridiculous was that this distraction technique was _working_ , as Kim was now on the verge of losing.

Forgetting his serious role as judge, Max burst into giggles.

It turned the tide immediately. Kim took one look at Max laughing, then his face turned to a confident grin before–

WHAM.

He slammed Alix’s arm down on the table in under a second.

“Ha, take that!” he laughed, standing up and pumping his fist in triumph. “I told you I could win! And as revenge for your, uh, _distractions_ , you have to buy me like twelve new pillows. Deal?”

Alix looked at Kim, then looked at Max, then back at Kim again. “Yeah, sure… whatever…”

“Why so quiet now? Are you humiliated at your loss?”

She was still looking between Kim and Max, an unreadable expression on her face. “What? No, that was… that was a very good match. Well done.” She held out her hand for a handshake, which Kim happily accepted.

Max cleared his throat, getting his laughter under control. “Anyway, can we actually get on with our work now?”

Kim sat back down on his chair and opened the textbook. “Yes please Max, that would be wonderful.”

 

 

 

Later in the day, Kim slowly walked back towards his room by himself, feeling immensely proud. He had a secret weapon now when it came to arm wrestles, and he knew exactly what it was – it was Max! Somehow, just seeing his best friend’s adorable giggling face had snapped him back into action. Forget pillows, forget sports bras, they were nothing compared to the power of friendship. All he had to do now to make sure he always won was to have Max nearby.

He already knew Max had some sort of calming effect on him, that was obvious. It had helped him out with his homework countless times. But now that it seemed Max could boost his focus and concentration too? Yes, this was awesome! Max was far more special than he realized. Perhaps he even had some sort of weird superpower too. An ability to exert an aura of calm on those closest to him. Something like that. That would be so cool.

Kim heard footsteps behind him and he turned around to see Alix running up towards him, using a rope to drag along some kind of plank on wheels that her snake was riding on.

“Kim! I need to ask you something!”

“So do I!” He pointed at the plank thing. “What the heck is that?”

“My snake.”

“No, I mean what’s the snake sitting on?”

Sitting? Was that even the right word? Standing? Lying? Snakes didn’t even have arms or legs or anything, so none of the words fit.

“It’s a skateboard,” she said. “Another wheel sports thing. Like rollerskates.”

“Oh, right…”

“Anyway, about the arm wrestle earlier–”

“I won fair and square,” Kim said, crossing his arms, “so don’t tell me you could have beaten me or anything.”

“No, I know, you won for once and I’m proud of you, whatever. I was actually gonna ask you… well, you know when Max started laughing, and then you won in like one second, just… how did you do that?”

She had figured out his secret weapon that quickly? No! That was so unfair! Now how was he supposed to use this again?

“Max is so cool that he can telepathically give me strength,” Kim said. “You’re not the only one with superpowers, it seems.”

“Are you sure though? Are you really sure that Max has superpowers? Don’t you think it might be something to do with you, not him?”

“What are you on about? Of course it’s to do with me. I’m awesome, and also super strong, and I won. What’s your point?”

She stayed silent for a few seconds, thinking. Then she said, “What’s your opinion of Max?”

Kim didn’t even need to think. “He’s _awesome!_ Way cooler than the rest of us – so smart, and also nice, and also not a complete idiot like the two of us always are. I’m just so honoured that someone as cool as him is my best friend.”

“Best friend?” She had a very strange expression on her face. “So… you would call him your best friend? I mean… are you sure he isn’t… something else to you?”

“Excuse me, are you trying to imply that he’s _not_ my best friend? That he’s only my friend? Or acquaintance? Or some lowly thing like that? Because surely you know better than anyone how much I care about him! I trusted you, Alix! He’s my best friend, just like you are!”

She shook her head. “I didn’t mean like that. I meant… is he something more than that?”

“You mean like a super-mega best friend? Heck yeah. Whatever the highest level of friendship is, he’s that. For sure.”

“Oh. Okay.” She almost looked disappointed for some reason.

“Why are you even asking me this?”

“Um, no reason. I was just… uh… I was mistaken about something. Don’t worry about it.”

Without another word, she turned around again and left, dragging the skateboarding snake away with her.

Okay, that had been weird. Mistaken about something? What on earth was she mistaken about? How could she have mistook Kim and Max for anything other than the best of friends? What else could she have been thinking of?

It was probably just more of that weird timeline stuff, that was it. Something weird must have happened in another timeline and it was messing with her, something like that. It wasn’t like she would tell him anyway. She had already said that some of the things from the other timelines were too “embarrassing” to tell him about, whatever she meant by that. He hadn’t thought it was possible for someone like her to be embarrassed about anything. But what could be more embarrassing than the timelines where they were supposedly betrothed to each other?

He turned another corner to come face to face with Lady Caline, who started in surprise.

“Prince Kim! Just the person I was looking for!”

“Why, am I in trouble or something?” He wracked his brains to remember what he could have possibly done wrong recently, but nothing came to mind. He had barely been out of quarantine for a day yet.

“No, nothing like that.” Her tone sounded oddly strained. “You’re needed in Duke Damocles’s office. A letter has arrived at the school with news about your kingdom.”

His hopes leapt up before the words had even registered in his brain. “Is it safe for me to go back home yet?”

“No, it isn’t that. You had better come and read the letter for yourself. Please follow me.”

She began walking towards Duke Damocles’s office and Kim swiftly followed. What could this news be? Lady Caline didn’t look very happy about it, and it made him rather apprehensive. What if his country was at war with Agreste or something? Was that the news? He couldn’t think of anything else it could be.

Invited into the office, Duke Damocles quickly bowed at him and held out a scroll of paper. “This just arrived from the postal centre in Cheng, originally sent by messenger pigeon from Lê Chiến. The news could not be delivered by telephone as the telecommunication lines in Lê Chiến have been badly damaged in the 7th region, and fixing them is an impossibility at the moment.”

Kim just nodded and took the piece of paper. Why did everyone sound so miserable? What could possibly be wrong? Surely it must be war. That was the only thing that could be this bad.

Just as he used to do with the letters from his parents, he skimmed this one without reading every word. It was from his grandmother, the Queen-Consort. Or rather, it seemed she was the Queen-Consort no longer.

_I have recently been retitled the Queen-Dowager, due to a recent unfortunate event that befell the King while he was heading out for peace negotiations with Agreste in the 7 th region…_

Queen-Dowager. That title sounded familiar. Oh yes, he remembered Max having taught him about it – when a monarch died, their spouse was given the title of Dowager.

When a monarch died…

But surely that meant…?

_…and so my husband, the late King, was declared dead in the early hours of the morning. It seemed that his tea contained a lethal amount of poisonous metal._

The king of Lê Chiến was dead. Kim’s grandfather.

_At present we do not know if the poisoning was an accident, or whether more sinister forces are at work here. Poisoning a monarch is high treason._

So he might have been murdered… by who? Someone from Agreste?

_The country is rather in turmoil now. As you are away I have stepped in as Regent. In any case, you are yet young. Monarchs are not crowned here until they pass their eighteenth birthday. But you are the heir to the throne, and so I suggest that once you return from school after your third and final year there, that is when you will be crowned as King and become the true ruler of the country. In the meantime I shall rule. I will try to improve the safety situation as much as possible so that you may return without too long a wait._

The heir to the throne. Oh yes, of course, that was Kim. He had known as well as anyone that once his grandfather died, it would be his turn to rule the country.

But he had never thought it would be this soon.

His grandfather… he hadn’t even been _old_. He shouldn’t be dead. No – he couldn’t be!

And the throne, left to Kim. It was his. Once school was over, he would be thrown straight into ruling a country.

This couldn’t be happening. He didn’t want to be a ruler. Eighteen? That was too young. He still felt like a kid. How was he supposed to feel any different in little over a year?

Panic was starting to creep over him like a pack of spiders. He tried to think of something that would make it better – wait, didn’t Alix already rule a country? And she was doing fine, wasn’t she? Surely it couldn’t be too bad?

But she didn’t even need to do anything. Her “elected council” did everything. Lê Chiến wasn’t like that. It was the kind of kingdom where the ruler made all the decisions, was the first to ride into battle, did much more than just stand around looking royal. The ruler had a responsibility. An entire country rested on their shoulders.

And now it rested on Kim’s shoulders.

Responsibility… the responsibility of ruling an _entire country_ …

He couldn’t take it. The panic was washing over him like a tidal wave now. Dropping the letter on the ground, he ran out of the room and didn’t look back.

His grandfather was dead. He didn’t even know why that thought was affecting him as much as everything else. He had barely known his distant grandfather at all. The man had been like a stranger to him.

And now his dear grandmother was regent, ruling over the country until he finished school. To think that the commoners leaving school would go onto simple jobs, apprenticeships, higher education, whatever they wanted, working their way up little by little… and Kim was being made to rule a country!

He had always wanted to be king. But not like this.

Looking up, he saw that his feet had carried him to the thinking fountain without him even realizing. Now they gave way beneath him, and he sat on the ground beside the fountain, curled up into a ball.

He had wanted to go home. That was all he wanted. He had wanted it so much!

But now what? Now going home would mean responsibility thrust on him like a death sentence. Going home would mean being crowned as king. Becoming the leader of a nation. The immense pressure of having to do the right thing. Millions of people looking up to him, their lives depending on his every choice.

He didn’t want to go home anymore. But no – he did! He did want to go home! He missed it so much it physically _ached_ , like an entire piece of his heart was missing.

But returning home was not going to fill that void now. The idea of going home was now filling him with a sense of dread, so powerful he could barely even move.

He just lay down on his side, his face pressed into his knees, unable to stop himself crying. The tears spilled out, soaking the fabric of his clothes, rolling onto the ground and joining with the mist droplets from the fountain.

He just wanted to go home. But home was not Lê Chiến anymore. Then where was it? Did he just not have a home anymore? The thought made him cry so much he could barely breathe. It was worse than spiders, it was worse than a tidal wave – he was so overwhelmed by panic that his thoughts would just not stop. Everything hurt – everything just hurt so much!

 

 

He felt someone put a hand on his shoulder. How long had he been lying here for, anyway? It felt like it must have been a million years. He couldn’t even open his eyes. They were glued shut with the dry, crusty remains of tears. He must have cried a lot. It was hard to remember now. Everything seemed like a blur.

“Kim, it’s me. Lady Caline told me what happened.”

The voice… it was Max.

Kim sat up slightly and rubbed the dust out of his eyes enough to get them open. It was already evening by now. Max was kneeling beside him, a comforting hand still on his shoulder.

“Max…”

Even if he could have thought of something else to say, he wouldn’t be able to say it. His voice sounded more like a croak.

Never mind words then. Kim just leaned forwards and buried his face in Max’s shoulder, trying so hard not to cry but failing again. Max put his arms around him, thankfully not saying anything. Kim was not sure he wanted to hear anything right now.

It was some minutes before he managed to stop crying again. This time he felt slightly better, like some of his panic had been washed away with the tears. It left him exhausted, though, like he had gone through the flu all over again. He lifted his face away from Max’s shirt and wiped his eyes.

“Sorry for crying all over you,” he mumbled, his voice somewhat working again now.

“It’s alright,” Max replied. “It’s completely understandable.”

His voice was just so soothing, like he knew exactly what he was doing. It sounded like the equivalent of a drop of eucalyptus oil, or calm waves lapping against a sandy shore.

An idea suddenly came to Kim’s mind, something he hadn’t considered before. Something that made him feel a lot better. He took a deep breath and then gave Max a big hug.

“Thank you for being here,” he said.

“It’s no problem, really. You could do with some support right now.”

“I know I wanted to go home before, but now I don’t think I do. I miss it, but… I don’t want to be king. Not yet. I’m not ready. But you know what... maybe home isn’t Lê Chiến. I need a new place to call home for now. Home is supposed to be like, somewhere you’re comfortable, right? So where else than right here?”

“You mean you consider the school your home?”

Kim took another deep breath. He never wanted to let go. Being here with Max… it just felt so _right_.

“I don’t mean the school,” he said. “I mean you.”

“W-what?”

“I always feel so much better when you’re around! Whether that’s here, or in Kanté, or wherever… it’s you. Home is the one place you can always rely on to make you feel better, right? Well that’s you. Home is wherever you are. Because I can always rely on you.”

For a few seconds Max didn’t say anything. Then he hugged Kim even tighter.

“Home is wherever you are too, Kim.”


	32. Un chat noir

Imperial Prince Adrien had made sure to take a walk around the school grounds every single day since the guards had left. He was taking advantage of this new freedom he had. No need to worry, no need to cower in fear all the time, no need to spend every second of the day protected by other people! Now his life was his own again.

At least… for a while.

He would be spending the winter holidays with Marinette in Cheng, of course. That would be nice. But what about after that? What would he do? What if his father sent the guards back to the school again? How was he ever going to go back home without being forced to stay there?

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a little cat that had run across his path. It was small, black, and very fluffy, and now walked over to him and wound around his boots. He chuckled to himself and then bent down to give the cat a stroke.

“Oh, there you are kitty! Stop running away!”

Adrien looked up to see a familiar noble running towards him. It was someone from the year below him, he was sure, but other than that he couldn’t quite remember why he recognized him.

“Your Imperial Highness!” the noble gasped, quickly bowing at him. “Sorry if my cat’s bothering you – he hasn’t been the same since you rescued him–”

Oh yes, of course! Back when the guards were still here, this was the cat that Adrien rescued from a tree, causing the nobles to start thinking fondly of him and make up rather tall stories about his generosity. And this noble kid was the owner of the cat. Adrien remembered now.

“Don’t worry, I like cats,” he said, smiling as welcomingly as he could.

“Oh good!” The noble tried to pick up the cat, but it hissed and curled its tail up around Adrien’s leg. “Come on kitty, please… not this again…”

“Is your cat okay?” Adrien asked.

“I don’t know! Recently he’s been, well, um… You see, in our Royalty Study lessons, we got given little pictures of all the royals who attend this school, so we can recognize them and always treat them with proper respect. And my cat’s just obsessed with yours! He has been ever since you got him down from that tree!”

“Really? Why?”

“I have no idea! I knew this cat never really liked me that much in the first place, my parents only made me bring him to school with me in order to teach me some ‘responsibility’ or something. But now it’s like he doesn’t even want me to be his owner anymore. He keeps pointing at your picture and meowing. And now it seems like he won’t let you go. I just don’t understand it!”

Adrien crouched down and took a look at the cat. It stared right back at him, with big green eyes the same colour as his own.

“I’m sorry your cat’s acting strangely,” Adrien said. “If I knew the reason then I would do something to help, but I just can’t think what it could possibly be!”

“Aw, that’s okay. You saved this cat and that’s what matters. Hey, wait a minute!” The noble’s face lit up. “Are you a cat-whisperer or something?”

“Cat-whisperer? No, I don’t think so!”

Adrien tried to think of any other time that he had seen a cat acting this strangely, but he just couldn’t. He looked back at the cat and gave it another stroke. Something about this cat was just so adorable. He could never have let it stay stuck in that tree all alone, poor thing. He would have rescued it no matter the risk.

“You know,” the noble said, “maybe you should just keep the cat.”

“What? No, I can’t! This cat belongs to you and your family!”

“Well no one really cares about him that much back home… and I’m not really very good at taking care of him, I think he kind of hates me… you’d probably be a better owner…”

“I’d love to, but I just can’t. I’m sorry. Things are very difficult for me right now so having a pet is really not an option.”

The noble nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I hope things get better for you soon.”

“Thank you.” Adrien stood back up and looked down at the cat. “Cat, go back to your owner for now, okay? And be good. You can always come and see me some other time.”

The cat blinked slowly at him. Then it turned around and leapt into its owner’s arms.

“Wow, he listened to what you said!” the noble laughed, cuddling his cat tightly. “Maybe you really are a cat-whisperer! Or maybe just this cat in particular!”

“Yeah,” Adrien muttered. “Maybe just this cat in particular.”

“Anyway, I’ll be off now. See you soon, Your Imperial Highness!”

“You can just call me Adrien if you want.”

The noble looked startled. “Oh, okay then… A-Adrien…” He rushed off quickly.

That had been strange. But then again, Adrien was finding it hard to be surprised by anything in his life these days. His own father had ordered him to be locked up, he escaped, had a bunch of misadventures while trying to get back to school, ended up having a gang of his friends protect him from guards sent to kidnap him, a pharaoh ripped a sword aside with her bare hand for him, and then the earthquake shocked him into…

…into telling Marinette how he truly felt about her…

Thinking about Marinette brought a smile to his face. Something about her was just so – so beautiful! On the inside and out! How lucky was he that she felt the same way about him? And was even inviting him to stay with her over the holidays? That would be amazing!

Suddenly blushing, he remembered that the winter party was not too far away now. Last year he had managed to kiss someone he liked under the mistletoe. Perhaps this year he would get to kiss Marinette. And perhaps this year it would be a little less awkward!

 

Somewhere else in the school grounds, not too far away, Alix sat on the ground with a pair of skates on, waiting. Her pet snake was on its skateboard next to her. She looked up at the fountain in front of her – wasn’t this the fountain that Kim and Max were always hanging out at? Kim had said that the fountain made him feel calmer, but Alix didn’t feel any calmer than usual. Kim had probably meant that _Max_ made him feel calmer.

She was still wondering about that. Clearly Max had some kind of effect on Kim, something unusual. Kim seemed to think it was friendship. But surely it couldn’t be that? Kim had other friends he cared about just as much. Like Alix herself, of course. So what made Max so different?

Well, if Kim was in love with Max, he would have told her. He wasn’t the type to lie – especially since she had directly asked him exactly how he felt about Max. No, she was probably just reading too much into things. Romance never made sense to her anyway, she was always getting it wrong.

_“You don’t even know how true that is.”_

Ugh, it was that annoying timeline twin again. She had a habit of making snide remarks all the time. Alix wasn’t sure how anyone could possibly put up with her.

“Can you just be quiet and go away?” she said in her mind, trying to somehow sound as threatening as possible. Telepathically. Somehow. This timeline thing was still super weird.

_“No, I can’t. Unlike you, I don’t actually have many people to talk to in my actual life. If I don’t annoy you as much as possible, I’ll get bored.”_

Alix ignored her.

_“The silent treatment, huh? Very funny. You’re not so different from me after all, then. I’ve been using the silent treatment on almost everyone I know.”_

“Yeah, and I’m doing the opposite. Since you’re a bitter loner, I’m gonna make sure I have as many friends as possible to balance that out. I don’t want to end up like you.”

_“It’s not that easy to make friends and you know it. All your classmates are still afraid of you. Except Kim and Max.”_

This timeline twin was a fool. Alix had other friends too – she had made friends with Adrien, Chloé and Lila during the quarantine, and Juleka occasionally talked to her. It wasn’t that difficult. And she wasn’t that scary.

_“Alright, fine, you have those superficial acquaintances too. But I doubt any of them would take a sword to the hand for you.”_

“Not yet. But I’ll get there. I’m waiting for Mylène right now actually, I’m gonna–”

_“Teach her how to rollerskate, yeah, I know. I can see everything you see, remember? And you can see everything I see. But you never seem to use that.”_

“Why should I? No offence, but your timeline is not very interesting.”

_“On the contrary, my timeline is a trainwreck. You’re just a lazy coward who won’t bother looking into it too deeply, because you don’t want to get your precious little cotton socks all muddy with what I’ve done. And it could so easily have been **you** in this situation. The only reason it isn’t is because of a lucky little butterfly.”_

A what? A butterfly? Did she mean the butterfly effect? Fu had mentioned that earlier. But surely he hadn’t meant it literally?

_“He didn’t, but I do. Remember that Monopoly game ages ago? The one where you and Kim got into a fist fight over that last dark blue card?”_

Alix almost started laughing out loud. That Monopoly game had been the funniest thing ever. But what did that have to do with butterflies? And anyway, what was so important about a Monopoly game? It was one of many that she had played with Kim and Max. It wasn’t a big deal.

_“It was a way bigger deal than you think, actually. You came second, right? Well I didn’t. That was where our timelines split. I actually came dead last. By a long way. And yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s thanks to a butterfly. You remember the next day, having a tennis lesson outside? And Rose gushing about how cute all the butterflies were? Well in my timeline, Rose was actually crying because she found a dead butterfly on the ground.”_

Oh yes… Alix vaguely remembered Rose mentioning butterflies. It was so long ago, and it had barely seemed important at the time. She’d almost forgotten about it completely. Anyway, Rose was always talking about butterflies and rainbows and unicorns and whatever else. That hadn’t seemed like a big deal either.

_“So yeah. Butterfly flaps its wings, affects miniature draughts of wind through open windows, which affect the dice rolls in a certain game of Monopoly. In your timeline, the butterfly was alive and so its wing flaps got you to come second. In my timeline, the butterfly was dead and so I got no help at all. I lost so badly I went off to my room and sulked.”_

“Yeah, you seem like the sulking type.”

_“Oh shut up, you would have sulked too, we were basically the exact same person back then. Anyway, back in my room, since there was nothing else to do, I fed the snake that day. You didn’t feed the snake till the next day. So the feeding schedules were one day apart, and that changed everything.”_

Things were starting to make sense now. She couldn’t take her snake anywhere while it was still digesting food. So in the normal timeline, in the spring holidays, the snake hadn’t eaten yet so she took it along with her when teaching Kim how to rollerskate. But in the other timelines, the snake had already eaten that day, so she left it back at the palace…

_“Do you get it now?”_ the timeline twin said, sounding smug. _“The only real difference between you and me is one dead butterfly.”_

“How did you even figure this out?”

_“I have a lot of time on my hands. And I’m not too much of a sickly wimp to look through your timeline thoroughly.”_

What was with the timeline twin insulting her all the time? She took a deep breath and said, “I’m not a wimp, I just don’t like looking at the other timelines for some reason. I don’t know why. And it’s only really the spring holidays that are all fuzzy, like you’re trying to block it out on purpose or something. So yeah, it’s not my fault I have no idea what happened there. I don’t even know why you got grounded or betrothed to Kim or whatever. Why don’t you just tell me yourself?”

She got the distinct feeling that the timeline twin was somehow, telepathically, punching her in the arm. And not softly, either.

_“Because you can’t handle it.”_

“Why not?”

The timeline twin punched her in the arm again. _“Count yourself lucky you’re not a pillow, idiot.”_

“What? A pillow? What the f–”

“Alix! There you are!”

Alix looked up to see that Mylène had arrived, finally. Thank goodness. She had been getting so weirded out by that stupid timeline twin, she didn’t want to think about her for a second longer. Now was not the time for that.

No, now was the time to make new friends and be a decent, friendly person. The complete opposite of what the timeline twin was. After all, the timeline twin had said to learn from her mistakes, right? Then where better to start than being kind and nice to people? Especially to Mylène? Mylène sat next to Alix in class and yet they hadn’t spoken much at all. That needed to change.

“Hi Mylène,” Alix said, standing up. “You ready to learn how to rollerskate?”

Mylène nodded, a bright smile on her face. “Yes please!”

 

 

 

Kim knocked on the door to Max’s room, feeling kind of sheepish. This was so stupid.

“Hello Kim,” Max said, opening the door. “What’s up?”

“There’s a spider on the ceiling in my room and there’s no way I’m gonna be able to get to sleep if it’s there so uh…”

Max looked like he was trying not to grin. “You want me to put it outside for you? Of course.”

“Thanks,” Kim said. “Sorry for bothering you about it.”

“Huh? Oh don’t worry, it’s no bother!”

Max smiled up at him and then started walking off down the corridor towards Kim’s room without waiting. Kim couldn’t help feeling somewhat guilty. Recently it felt like he had just been dumping all his emotions, feelings and problems on Max without letting Max do the same in return. And yet Max was always so willing to help him! Why?

They went into Kim’s room. The big spider was clearly visible on the ceiling, right in the middle of the room. It would be impossible to reach from the ground.

“I guess you could stand on this,” Kim said, pulling over the desk chair.

“That wouldn’t be very safe,” Max replied. “It’s a swivel chair with wheels on it so I could fall or…”

“What if I moved over the table?”

“It’s drilled into the wall, Kim.”

“Oh…”

Kim tried to think of something else. There was no way he was letting that spider stay in his room. The only person who would be tall enough to reach would be Ivan, and Kim was not letting that guy find out about his fear of spiders.

Wait… last time there was a spider, he had…

“I guess I could lift you up,” he mumbled. “I mean, I one time did that with Alix so that she could get rid of a spider for me… though I guess it’s kinda weird…”

Max wasn’t quite looking at him. “That sounds like a good idea.”

“Really? I thought you didn’t like people picking you up!”

“It’s alright when you do it,” Max said quietly, still not really looking at Kim. “I mean, you already do it a lot anyway, don’t you? When you’re hugging me and you do that thing where you uh… lift me off the ground a little…”

He was smiling a little, looking at the carpet. It was so adorable that Kim was tempted to do the hug thing he was describing right there and then.

“Alright then, I’ll lift you up!” he said.

Without further ado, he easily picked Max up in his arms and held him up towards the ceiling. Max grabbed the spider, then Kim walked him over to the window so he could put it outside.

And then, for some reason, Kim felt like he did not want to put Max down.

He couldn’t describe it. Maybe it was just that “Max is where home is” feeling getting to him again, so he wanted to be closer to him. Maybe it was just a sudden bout of friendship feels. Max was his best friend, after all. It was perfectly normal to suddenly be overcome with affection like that.

But then again… it felt different. But how? Why? He just didn’t know. All he knew was that holding Max in his arms felt so comforting, and he was feeling reluctant to let go.

“You’re, uh, pretty light,” he said.

Max just stared up at him for a few seconds, seemingly not quite paying attention. Then he shook himself out of it and said, “I’m not as light as Alix, am I?”

“Haha, no way. She’s so tiny I could lift her with a finger alone.”

“You really are very strong…”

Almost without thinking, Kim pulled Max closer, like a semi-hug. Compliments from his friend just made him feel so good! And Max being here in general, so close… that felt good too…

“You know, Max, I’m so glad I made friends with you.”

Max’s beautiful brown eyes, magnified in his glasses, were staring up at him in a way that made him feel almost nervous. But why would he be nervous? Max was the person he was most comfortable around! Was he just feeling overly vulnerable? The recent letter he’d got from home had really been messing with his emotions a lot. Maybe it was that.

“I’m glad I made friends with you too, Kim.”

Another compliment from Max. Kim felt like his heart was going to burst. How did he deserve someone as amazing as Max?

How had they even become friends, anyway? It was quite a long time ago, Kim remembered that much. They had been at the introduction to some summer camp when they were about 8. Kim had bragged that he could climb onto the roof quicker than anyone else, Max had suddenly come along and given him some nerdy scientific tips on how to get up there even quicker or something…

And it had worked. Kim had made it to the top of the roof in under 20 seconds, despite being tiny at the time. Then, standing up there, he had dedicated his win to Prince Max – the boy who had helped him get there. After that, it was no wonder that the two of them were friends. Even though Kim knew he had often been a jerk to people back then, he had never been like that to Max. Max had always been precious to him.

Now their friendship had paid off. Kim stood there, still holding Max in his arms, still not wanting to let go. He felt like with Max there, anything was possible. He wasn’t just some reckless competition freak who everyone thought was an idiot. He was a _person_.

He was hit by the sudden urge to be even closer to Max. What was this? Homesickness? Maybe. He didn’t even know. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Was it weird?

Whatever. He hugged Max tightly, hoping maybe Max’s calming influence thing might stop this sudden nervousness, this rush of adrenaline, these weird and oddly familiar feelings that were suddenly hitting him.

It didn’t. He just felt at a complete loss for words.

Why did he feel so weird around Max?

“Kim, are you alright?”

Another sudden spike of adrenaline at hearing Max say his name.

“I don’t know,” Kim admitted.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t know how to describe it…”

But then again, was something wrong?

Well, of course there was. The homesickness and the stress of being the future ruler of a kingdom.

But right now? At this very moment?

He felt overwhelmed, that was for sure. Like he was feeling too many things at once. But it didn’t exactly feel bad. It didn’t feel wrong.

It felt good.

“Max… I’m just so happy you’re here,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you…”

Max chuckled, so very sweetly. “You’d have to get someone else to get rid of spiders for you.”

Spiders?

Oh yes, of course… that was the reason why Kim had picked up Max in the first place. To get rid of that spider. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than that.

Kim quickly put Max down, trying to ignore how cold he suddenly felt.

“Thank you for saving me from the spider,” he said.

“Really, it’s no problem.”

Kim almost felt like saying something else. But what? It felt like his brain was trying to tell him something but he simply couldn’t figure it out. Even with Max right here with him.

“Anyway, if that’s all for now, I’d better get back to my room,” Max said, smoothing down his robes. “Let me know if you need anything else!”

Kim nodded. “Yeah, you too. See you.”

“See you soon.”

Max left the room. For several seconds, Kim just stood there in the same spot. With Max gone, his brain was feeling sluggish again. Whatever he had been on the verge of figuring out, he would not be able to figure it out now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote all the kimax parts months ago :P In the upcoming chapters, any kimax scenes, you can be sure I had already written them way earlier (we're talking like April/May here) because I got impatient. Slow burn is no fun sometimes. At least now I might update quicker since all I have to write are the bits in between. And if I'm taking too long then that means I'm procrastinating, so please get on my tumblr (@queenkubdel) and pester me about it so I actually do it.


	33. The hair is a lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack sorry this took a while... I have no motivation to write chapters with no kimax in them :P (The next one or two probably won't have either, but then... after that... LOTS AND LOTS OF KIMAX :D)

Late the next day both Aurore and Mireille were in a bad mood, somewhat having turned into rivals with each other, and as a result the weather outside was rather stormy. Kim had wanted to go for a run – no, he needed to go for a run! There was so much going on in his head that he had to sort out! But he wasn’t very keen on being struck by lightning, so instead he paced the corridors indoors, muttering to himself. He knew he probably should be doing homework. But he couldn’t do that right now.

Not when he felt so _betrayed_ by what had just happened.

“What the hell what the hell what the hell???” he whispered as he strode down the corridor at top speed, ignoring the confused looks of people he passed by.

He still couldn’t believe it. After all this time, it was just _hair dye…_

There were plenty of things in the universe that couldn’t be explained by science. Things that Kim had never even thought to question. Like Master Fu’s mysterious oracle powers, being able to see into the future, other people having other weird powers like weather control or timeline-jumping, whatever weird effect Max had on Kim, the fact that water never seemed to boil while you were watching it.

And so Kim had always just assumed that Alix having pink hair was one of those unexplainable things. Perhaps some people were just born with pink hair. Maybe it was a weird shade of red, like how Marinette’s black hair sometimes seemed to look blue in certain lighting. He had always thought it was completely natural.

But no. It turned out to just be hair dye, of all things. Hair dye!

He still couldn’t let it go. All she had been doing was showing him and Max colour pictures of when she was little, after they asked to see if she had always been short for her age, and there it was. She had _brown hair_. Not pink, but brown.

To think that Kim had thought that maybe his friend was special in some way for having pink hair! Some kind of Chosen One, destined to go on awesome adventures! When in reality, she just dyed her hair pink because, in her own words, it “looks cooler like that”.

Well, at least that wasn’t a lie. Pink hair was pretty cool.

But still! She had brown hair! _She had brown hair!_

The pink hair was a lie!

Kim suddenly found himself facing the library doors. Huh, had he really walked here that fast? Maybe his mind subconsciously knew he needed to do homework and stop having an existential crisis over his best friend’s hair colour. Yeah, he was definitely overreacting and he knew it. His emotions had been all over the place since getting that letter from his grandmother.

Maybe he really should go in the library and get on with some work. Anyway, Max might be in there! Max was always in the library, doing nerdy research or whatever. It would be nice to see him again, even though they had already seen each other barely an hour ago. Max was just so comforting to be around, no matter what.

Kim walked into the library and had a quick look around, but the only other people in there were a few nobles who he didn’t know. They all looked a little nervous to see him. How did the nobles always know exactly who the members of royalty were, seriously? Did they have specific classes on how to recognize them or something? Because Kim wasn’t even wearing anything remotely royal at the moment – he hardly ever did!

In any case, he sat down at one of the tables and pulled a random book off the shelf. It would be good to actually do some research for once, just like Max. Okay… what was this book about? _Historical Account of the Rise of the Agreste Empire, 1703-1899_. What a coincidence. The Agreste Empire was causing, like, 95% of his problems right now. He opened to the beginning and began reading.

_This book has been commissioned by His Imperial Majesty Emperor Gabriel the Miraculous, Divine Ruler of the Great and Most Wondrous Empire of Agreste and all its Territories, the Many Unified Kingdoms of Europe, the Vast and Distant Realms of the East and Asia, the Multitude of Atlantic Islands within the Great Western Ocean, the…_

This was already boring. And anyway, if this book had been commissioned by Adrien’s dad himself, then wouldn’t it be really biased? Most of the world disapproved of the Agreste Empire but there was no way a book like this would bother to mention that.

Someone suddenly dumped a giant pile of homework on the table right next to him, making him jump. He turned to see Imperial Princess Chloé standing there. For once she wasn’t completely overdressed – it seemed that after the whole “Adrien Protection Squad” thing, she had cooled down a little when it came to fashion. She wasn’t even wearing a wig, though her hair was still done up elaborately. And her dress was finally narrow enough to be able to fit through normal size doors.

“May I sit here?” she asked, her voice as icy cool as always.

“If you want,” Kim replied. He had barely spoken to Chloé at all since the beginning of last year, when she had bluntly refused his courting gift and called him a peasant. He wasn’t sure why she wanted to sit next to him now, but whatever the reason, it probably wasn’t good.

Chloé sat on the chair beside him but made no move to start on her homework. Instead she cleared her throat and said, “I presume you are fully recovered from the flu?”

“Um, yeah… I wouldn’t be let out of quarantine otherwise…”

She cleared her throat again. “Of course I know that. I was merely concerned for your health.”

“Well I’m perfectly fine, thank you.” He looked back at the book in front of him, hoping she would stop talking now. Just the sound of her voice was bringing back bad memories.

“Have you given that brooch to anyone else?”

What? The _brooch?_ He hadn’t been expecting her to ask about that, of all things.

“I gave it to Max,” he mumbled.

“Well I’m glad to hear it has a good home now.”

There was a long silence. Kim stared at the book, trying to pretend he was reading it. Chloé still sat by his side, fiddling with the beads on her dress, ignoring her homework entirely. It was oddly uncomfortable. Despite the fact that Chloé’s rejection had been over a year ago, Kim knew that somewhere deep inside, it still affected him a little. It had been the first time he had been rejected. And the worst.

The brooch… well at least he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. Max had it now. Maybe he could give it to someone he liked at some point. And as for Kim himself, well, he could just buy another present if he ever fell in love with someone again. Or just improvise a present, like the song he played on the day of the Cupid Festival for Alix. But perhaps not that cheesy next time…

His thoughts drifted back to Chloé again. Why was she just sitting here, not saying or doing anything? Was she planning on doing anything mean? According to Alix, Chloé was a lot nicer these days, especially after being one of the group protecting Adrien, but still? Surely there was no purpose to this?

Finally he turned to Chloé and said, “No offence but why are you here? What do you want?”

She took a deep breath and then, looking down at him rather haughtily, said, “I would like to make a formal apology to you.”

“Oh… um… for what?”

“What do you think?” She wrinkled up her nose. “For that time when I laughed at you and called you a peasant when you were trying to ask me out! It was rather improper of me, and you deserve much more respect than that. So yes – I am sorry.”

She was… she was actually apologizing to him for that? But it had been so long ago! He had just accepted that she was never going to bring that up with him again, and moved on. Yet now, she was actually apologizing to him for it?

Huh… that was… nice…

“Thank you,” he said, hoping he wasn’t blushing.

“You are very welcome. From now on I will attempt to deal with people much more politely. Though, for the record, I would still turn you down if you asked me out now.”

“Uh, yeah. That’s fine.” He probably wouldn’t ask her out again in a million years anyway, even though she was still pretty cute.

“Not for any personal reasons or anything. It’s just that I already have a sweetheart at the moment. Marchesa Lila and I have grown very close over the past month or so.”

“Yeah, she told me.”

“And even if she wasn’t my sweetheart,” Chloé continued, “I would still prefer to say no to you. Again, nothing personal. It’s just that I’ve recently come to terms with… well… I suppose my romantic preferences don’t exactly lie with men, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, okay.”

“So I would still turn you down. But much more politely this time, I hope. I’ve learned that even those of lower ranks are worthy of respect. Even commoners. It’s not like it’s their fault they were born that way.”

“Mhm.” Kim wasn’t sure why she was still talking to him.

“And anyway,” she said, speaking faster now, “the ranks and everything, they’re all just made up, aren’t they? Adrien wouldn’t be having any of the problems he’s facing now if he was a commoner. And there wouldn’t be so much poverty in my empire if the laws didn’t make things harder for commoners to improve their place. It’s all just fake. And I can be courteous and polite to whoever I want, no matter their rank. And I can marry a marchesa if I want to, it doesn’t have to be some imperial prince just because some outdated laws say so! And–”

She stopped suddenly, taking a deep breath. The haughty expression dropped from her face, leaving her looking at him with something more like compassion. It was so unusual for her that it threw him off a little.

“And I can have whoever I want as my friends. Even princes of countries that I once thought were lowly backwaters. People like you, Kim.”

Wait… was she implying what he thought she was implying?

“Are you saying you want to be my friend?” he asked her, incredulous.

“It would be ideal to have cordial relations with my fellow future world leaders. So yes. I would like to be your friend.”

Chloé wanted to be his friend? This was the last thing he had been expecting! He didn’t even know how he felt about it. Part of him just assumed that Chloé was lying about all this, and that she’d go back to being mean again in a few days.

But then again… hadn’t Kim himself been a jerk once upon a time? He’d managed to change and make new friends. Now Chloé was going through the same thing. He knew how it felt.

Hoping he wouldn’t regret this, he held out his hand. “Alright then, we can be friends.”

“Really?” Her face lit up. She gave Kim’s hand a firm handshake. “Thank you, Kim! I won’t let you down, I promise. My days of being unkind are behind me now. Things will be better from now on.”

“Awesome.”

“Anyway, now that’s sorted…” She finally opened one of the textbooks in front of her. “How about we do our homework together, as a symbol of our new friendship?”

Well, why not. He needed to get his homework done anyway. “Sure.”

 

An hour later, leaving the library again, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat… _proud_. Chloé had apologized to him and made friends with him, and even been a helpful homework pal? Now that he really thought about it, that was pretty cool of her! He was proud of his new friend. Hopefully she would make a great ruler someday and bring more balance to the rather messy Bourgeois Empire. At least she was starting not to share the same classist prejudices of her father.

Walking around the corner of the corridor far faster than he probably should, Kim suddenly bumped straight into someone.

“Oh, sorry…” he muttered, standing back to take a look at who it was. Probably some noble or something.

“You again!”

Drat, that was no noble – that was Grand Duke Ivan! He did not look pleased. He never was pleased to see Kim.

But wasn’t that Kim’s fault? He had always been rather irritating towards Ivan on purpose when they were younger, finding it funny to annoy him, always mocking him for stupid stuff, never taking him seriously…

“Get out of my way,” Ivan snapped, shoving Kim aside and starting to walk off.

“Ivan, wait!” Kim called after him, an idea forming in his mind. A rather Chloé-like idea.

“What do you want?!” Ivan turned and stood with his arms folded, the expression on his face looking like a synonym for death somehow. Kim gulped, trying not to feel too nervous.

“I just, uh… want to make a formal apology!”

“A formal apology, huh?!”

“Okay, okay, an informal apology! Whatever! An apology. Um.” He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Ivan, I have totally been a jerk to you. A lot. And I want to say sorry, and that I won’t do it again. And you’re not a wimp. You’re a cool guy and Mylène is very lucky to have you.”

Ivan’s eye twitched slightly. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“No! No, I swear I’m not joking. I really mean it.”

For a few seconds Ivan just stood there in silence, his expression unchanging. Then he sighed and said, “Apology temporarily accepted – as long as you don’t start being a jerk again.”

“I won’t.”

“Yep, you’d better not.” He began walking off again.

“And also! Uh…” Kim shuffled rather nervously on his feet. “You wanna be friends or something?”

“Don’t push it, Kim,” Ivan said, though Kim could have sworn he saw the tiniest of smiles on his face for a second. “If you want my friendship, you have to earn it.”

“Then I will totally be doing that.”

“Good.”

Ivan walked away for good this time. Kim released a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding. It felt good to have gotten that out of the way.

And then his mind went straight back to the thing he had been trying to distract himself from the whole time.

“I still can’t believe the pink hair is a _lie_ …”

 

 

 

Off in her own room, the “pink”-haired pharaoh herself was on the phone to her brother, telling him all about everything that had been happening lately.

“…and for some reason he freaked out loads, which is stupid since he bleaches the top of his hair too! Me and Max were just laughing so much…”

“Did you consider why he’s freaking out so much?” Jalil asked.

“Uh, ‘cause he has no sense of proportion?”

“True, but also because he’s under a lot of pressure right now. Finding out his grandfather is dead and he’s next up for the throne was a big change for him. So now even small changes are affecting him. Such as his friend’s hair colour not being what he thought it was.”

“Jalil, are you like… psychoanalysing Kim?”

“Maybe.”

“Then can you psychoanalyse my weird alternate timeline twin too?” Alix asked, knowing perfectly well that said twin was listening in at this very moment. “She’s a really weird annoying jerk.”

“Sounds to me like house arrest really got to her,” Jail said. “But it’s so unfair that your powers are strong enough to let you talk to her! I’ve been experimenting with my own timeline powers recently but all I can ever see is vague stuff! I know in the timeline you died, I started a civil war for the throne against dad, which is… pretty weird…”

“That is so cool. I think you’re probably gonna do it in the Escape Timeline too – the one with my timeline twin. Do you know what she’s planning to do? She’s gonna just abdicate the throne and leave school like some kind of _coward_ –”

_“I’m not a coward!”_ the timeline twin snapped. Alix just grinned, ignoring her entirely.

“–and leave the throne to you, but since dad sent you away to Antarctica or something in the holidays while she was grounded, he’ll just take the throne for himself, and then you’ll come back and get mad at him, and start a civil war! So that’s the succession crisis Fu was talking about!”

“Sounds stressful,” Jalil said.

“And then you know what else? Since Adrien can’t go home either, she and him are totally just gonna elope–”

_“Ew, I’m not gonna elope! I’ll just leave school with him and protect him until he gets a venomous pet of his own, then–”_

“Yep, they’re totally eloping,” Alix continued, grinning even more. “And I am definitely not just saying that to annoy her, since I know she’s listening. At least in this timeline, the awesome cool timeline, I’m going to stay pharaoh and be an awesome ruler. And Adrien’s got Marinette and Nino to help him out. And I’m not somehow enough of an idiot to accidentally get engaged to Kim and cause this mess in the first place.”

“How did that even happen?” Jalil asked.

“I honestly don’t know.”

“Well from what I know of the traditional royalty laws in our country, I think there are certain conditions that result in automatic betrothal, though I’m not sure what they are. You know, those annoying old rules that don’t make any sense? Like the one saying that the youngest kid gets to be pharaoh when they’re 15? One of those rules.”

“Maybe it was murder,” Alix mused. “Maybe the timeline twin murdered someone, and now as punishment, she got betrothed to Kim even after she broke up with him…”

“After she _what?!_ ”

Whoops, she had forgotten to tell Jalil about that part. “Oh yeah. She dated him for like a week. And I think she’s trying to block it out because I can’t access any of it. To be honest I’m not sure I want to.”

“Hmm… Well now I’m fairly certain it wasn’t murder that resulted in her forced betrothal…”

“Then what was it? Surely just dating someone doesn’t mean you have to marry them, even in those stupid old rules!”

“I think it was something else…”

“But what?”

“Never mind,” Jalil said quickly. “At least he didn’t end up with you in this timeline. I think that was partially my fault. When I asked him about it in the spring holidays he admitted he liked you, and I was… a bit unsupportive…”

“He told you he liked me? Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious. What did you even say to him?”

“I said that you two would be a terrible match. A disaster waiting to happen.”

Alix just laughed. “Well, according to the other timelines, you weren’t wrong!”

“I do think, though, that him and Max… well…”

“Yeah, I think so too. But I don’t think he’s into Max. Well, maybe? I don’t know. Maybe they’re just really close friends. It’s not like I can tell the difference.”

“Keep an eye on him.”

“I will. I think he needs some support right now.”

“And I think you do too.”

“Uh – what?”

“The timeline stuff. You’ve basically experienced yourself _dying_. And pretty nastily, too. Just… don’t let it get to you.”

She didn’t say anything. It was true that the venom death had somewhat been haunting her. But she had just been trying to think about it from a detached point of view – that wasn’t _her_ , it was just someone else from another timeline, another dimension, another _universe_ …

It was still scary, though.

And she could feel the timeline twin looking at her, an annoyingly smug expression on her face.

_“Finally taking things seriously now, are we?”_

Ugh. She was so annoying.

“I’ll be fine,” Alix said to Jalil, ignoring the timeline twin again. “Trust me.”

“Good. Anyway, I’ve got a lot of work to get on with, and I guess you probably have too. I’ll speak to you again soon. Keep me up to date.”

“Yeah, of course. See you soon, nerd.”

“You too, dork.”

She hung up, not wanting to, knowing that the stupid timeline twin was going to use the silence as an excuse to start talking again. It was best to go do something else for a while to shut her up.

_“So do you honestly think that y–”_

“Sorry, can’t talk, busy going to go hang out with my friends, bye!”

She picked up the snake and hurried out of the room.


	34. A rather rotten winter party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You get two chapters in one go, just because the second one was already complete! Anyway, I've put a T-rating on this sucker so I may as well use it, this chapter is terrible and I'm so sorry

The next few weeks were extremely busy. Everyone had so much work to catch up on from the quarantine that all clubs had been cancelled for a while, including duelling club. Kim and Adrien decided that they would carry on having duels against each other in their spare time anyway, since they both needed an outlet for it. And they needed to keep their friendship. That was important.

The winter party arrived so quickly it took everyone by surprise. Quarantine had felt like a long stasis period, completely unreal, but it had taken away several months that no one would ever get back. Now it was indeed December already, whether or not it seemed like it.

Max would be leaving tomorrow morning to go back to his own kingdom, and the winter party was tonight. It was probably best not to stay up too late in that case. He only had to return home early to get a new suit fitted anyway, for some event his family were having soon. It would have been nicer to stay at school for a bit longer.

The winter party was much like last year. Informal, mistletoe everywhere, a band playing lively music, mandatory enough that all students had to attend for at least an hour. And yet there were differences too. Everyone seemed so much more subdued this year, as if the flu had zapped their energy. People weren’t mingling as much, interacting as much with those outside of their rank or country’s alliances… it was odd. A side effect of the worsening state of world politics. Almost like something big was brewing on the horizon.

Hopefully not war.

“Last year I kissed a really hot guy under the mistletoe,” Kim was bragging to a bunch of intimidated nobles, having already eaten so much chocolate that he was too hyper for his own good. “It was so awesome. Yeah, that’s right. I’m so hot that even dudes want to kiss me.”

Max could barely restrain himself from laughing. How true it was! Dudes certainly did want to kiss Kim. A certain dude standing right here wanted to kiss Kim very much. And it was true that Kim was hot. And sweet. And cute. And…

He tried to get his mind away from that thought. Time to move on from Kim already.

“…and I must be such a good kisser, I mean, I kissed a really hot girl too once–”

“For like one millisecond,” Alix scoffed. “Unless you’re counting your pillow girlfriend, in which case several hours–”

“Don’t bring up pillow girlfriend in front of people!” Kim whispered furiously. He turned to the nobles, who had started giggling and walking away. “Nononononono she’s joking about the pillow thing! Come back! I swear I really kissed an actual girl once! I’m a good kisser, honestly – anyone want to practise?”

Max bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself yelling, “Pick me!” Come on! Why couldn’t he just get over Kim already?

Kim rolled his eyes and turned back to his friends, the nobles all having left. “Well I probably would be a good kisser if someone would actually kiss me for more than a second. I just haven’t had a chance to prove myself yet. In fact, I bet Adrien would say I’m totally the best, even with that one second. No one can beat me.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Alix muttered under her breath.

“Oh really? You think someone else is a better kisser than I am, little miss I-don’t-care-about-romance? You can never prove it.”

“Actually I can! In the other timelines, when–”

She stopped suddenly, blushing.

“When what?”

“N-nothing…”

“Seriously, what?”

“I’m intrigued now too,” Max said, grinning. Alix had already told them that some of the events of the other timelines were “too embarrassing” to mention, and it seemed like this counted.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, still blushing. “I just happen to know from the other timelines that you yourself, Kim, admitted that I’m a better kisser than you are. Somehow. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

“What?!” Kim curled up his fists. “Can I fight my other timeline self for saying that? Can I? How dare he betray me like this?”

“You’ve had too much chocolate, haven’t you? You can’t fight your timeline twin, idiot. And,” she continued, smiling rather wickedly all of a sudden, “how do you know he’s not right?”

“Oh come on! There’s no way he can know that! We only kissed one time and it was for like, less than a second, I barely even remember it, it wasn’t great…”

“Well things went a little differently in the other timelines,” Alix said, face bright red again. “Don’t ask me the details because I honestly don’t know. But, uh… let’s just say that in the other timelines, it wasn’t exactly a pillow you were kissing in the spring holidays…”

“What, seriously? _You?!_ How the heck did that happen?” He crossed his arms. “Well you can’t prove that you’re telling the truth, so there. I am still absolutely a better kisser, and if any other Kim says otherwise then he’s definitely an imposter and you should fight him.”

“You think I’m lying? I’m really not…”

“Well I’m not gonna believe you without any proof! Yeah, I’m being scientific, just like Max, so there!”

Max did not want to get involved in a conversation about Kim’s love life, of all things. He quickly stepped away and headed towards the drinks table.

So what exactly had happened in the spring holidays in the other timelines then? From the sounds of it, it still must have been unpleasant for him. But that was enough of being selfish. Kim could kiss whoever he wanted, it had nothing to do with him. Kim was his best friend, his totally awesome, wonderful, _platonic_ best friend. Platonic love was amazing too, and so underrated. It was time to start focusing more on that side of things.

He returned from getting a drink to see his two idiot best friends having a moment under the mistletoe that was rather too passionate for even an informal event like this. The height difference was so extreme that they had dragged over a chair for Alix to stand on and even then she was a little too short, having to go on tiptoes.

“Can you two just get a room?!” he snapped at them.

“It’s not my fault!” said Alix. “He still won’t believe I’m better than him and he told me to prove it, and I’m not turning down a challenge–”

“Well for goodness sake stop making out in public! Just go do your stupid challenge somewhere else where no one has to see you!”

“Great idea, Max!” Kim said, picking up Alix and carrying her off with him.

Max rolled his eyes. Why couldn’t Kim challenge _him_ to a kissing contest instead? Well, probably because Max usually took no part in Kim’s silly challenges, preferring to watch from the sidelines, not really getting involved…

Huh. It was no wonder Kim had never even considered him.

 

 

Alya stood by Nino’s side with a drink in hand, watching Marinette and Adrien sharing a shy but sweet mistletoe kiss on the opposite side of the room.

“I can’t believe we actually got them to do it,” Nino said, grinning, leaning his elbow on Alya’s shoulder.

“And now what?” she asked. “They’re together, just like we wanted. So what does that mean for us?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed, trying to find the right words to say what she had been thinking for quite a while now. “I mean that the whole time us two have been together, our whole relationship… it’s built on trying to set up Marinette and Adrien. It’s not _us_.”

Nino nodded. “I guess I kinda get what you mean… whenever we hang out, we’re always just talking about them or whatever…”

“Exactly. I feel like I barely even know you at all, Nino, even though it’s been so long since Marinette locked us in that cupboard together! Don’t get me wrong, I really like you, but… I feel like we should spend some _actual_ quality time together.”

“I totally agree! You’re so cool and everything, it would be so neat to hang out with you properly, like without just making plans to set up our friends.”

Alya smiled. “You think I’m cool?”

“Hell yeah!” Nino finger-gunned at her. “You always have that awesome upbeat attitude, that strength, that optimism, all that cool stuff. You’re gonna make the coolest queen ever someday.”

“Aww, Nino!” She resisted the urge to hug him. “I’m not the only one who’s upbeat and optimistic, and you know it. Where would I be without my super swanky bae?”

He laughed. “Commoner slang sounds so much better when you’re the one using it!”

“It’s totes lit, amirite?”

“Legit off the hook!”

She saw someone out of the corner of her eye. Someone familiar. Turning around to get a better look…

“Theo?”

“Oh hey there, Your Highness!” he replied. Sure enough, it was him. He was wearing the school guard uniform but was still unmistakeable. Alya hadn’t spoken to him since he resigned from her spy ring, wanting to travel more. She hadn’t realized this was where he would be travelling to.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.

“Yes, it was a surprise. This school was hiring and the Bourgeois Empire pay really well for keeping this place safe. I thought I may as well get this job.”

“Well it’s good to see you. I hope you’re well?”

“Very well – I missed the flu entirely!”

“Good, good,” Alya muttered, not wanting to be reminded of the flu. That had been far from fun.

“Anyway,” Theo said, “I’m not really supposed to speak to the students and especially not members of royalty, so I’ll be off now. Bye, Your Highness.”

“Bye.”

She watched him walk off. Would it be worth it to get him to start spying for her again? But then again, not much serious stuff seemed to happen at this school. Mostly her reports from the spies were just silly things like who had got a detention, who had broken up with who, who had played a prank on Lady Mendeleiev and got into trouble for it. Nothing serious.

Nah, it probably wasn’t worth it. And Theo probably had his hands full being a school guard. She should just let him do his new job in peace.

“So who is that guy?” Nino asked her.

“Some guy who used to work in my kingdom,” she replied. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea where Theo actually came from, who he really was. No wonder the guy was so good at being a spy if he was so mysterious!

“Anyway, I was wondering,” Nino continued, shuffling around a little nervously, “did you wanna stay in my kingdom with me for the holidays? It’s just I know that Césaire is so far away and the travelling is so expensive and long, and Lahiffe’s a lot closer, so…”

“Of course I’d love to stay with you!” She tried to resist the urge to hug him again, but this time gave in. Nino was just too sweet. “Lahiffe sounds amazing! And this was what I was talking about – we’ll get to hang out with each other properly now!”

“Yeah! It’s gonna be so fun!”

“Exactly!”

This was perfect. Adrien would be staying with Marinette for the holidays, and now Alya with Nino. The four of them just made such a good team together! It was almost like fate had meant for their lives to intertwine in some way. Alya hugged Nino a little tighter, feeling like she was finally making a real connection with him.

 

 

Off in a very empty corridor somewhere, Kim had made a scientific conclusion about something. The results were not entirely unexpected, but at least now he was sure.

Kissing was _fun_.

Of course he had guessed that it must be. Otherwise why would people do it? He just hadn’t managed to experience it for himself yet, since the only two kisses he’d had before were both too short to even remember. But now…

It was fun. Really, _really_ fun.

Or at least, it was fun if he just kept his eyes closed and pretended that this wasn’t his best friend he was kissing, who he had gotten over ages ago. Whenever he opened them for a second he just felt vaguely weirded out. But keeping them closed, he could imagine that this was someone who really loved him, who was doing this because they actually wanted to and not because they had something to prove…

Oh boy, he really needed a sweetheart. This was way too much fun. His brain was barely even working anymore, that was how much fun it was. Did it matter that he was some teenage stereotype for wanting to make out with someone a lot? He didn’t even care right now. This was good. So good.

Oh… she had stopped. Why had she stopped? He opened his eyes again, whatever he had been feeling fading away when he remembered exactly who it was that he had been kissing.

“So do I win?” Alix asked, looking bored.

“Win what?” Kim asked. His voice felt weird.

“Win the competition, duh.”

Competition? What competition…? Oh yes, _that_ competition. To see who was the better kisser. He had pretty much forgotten. How long had it even been? Probably not more than five minutes, though it felt a lot longer than that.

“Fine,” he admitted, swallowing his pride. “You win.”

“Haha, yes, I told you so!” She frowned suddenly. “You look flustered… are you in love with me again? It’s okay if you are but there’s no way I’m gonna–”

“What? No! Of course not!” He really wasn’t lying – if anything, kissing her had just put him off her even more, even if she was very good. “I’m just, uh… well, kissing’s kinda fun, okay? And like… if you wanted to do that again…”

“Nope.”

“Yeah okay fair enough, I mean, it was weird that it was with you, like, a lot weirder than last time... and I’m only a tiny bit turned on, I swear…”

“What does that even mean, anyway?” she asked, sitting back and picking up the snake who had been slithering around on the floor nearby.

“What does what mean?”

“Turned on. People are always saying it. I know it’s not the same as having a crush, so like… what does it even mean?”

“Forget it,” Kim mumbled, feeling very weirded out now. “It doesn’t matter, I’m not – I’m not actually–”

“Oh come on, I’m not completely stupid, I know perfectly well there’s something I’m missing here.”

“It’s just people being… you know… teenagery, I guess…”

“Is this something to do with The Talk?”

He could barely even look at her now. “Well kinda? I guess?”

“Oh, that explains it. I never had The Talk.”

“What? You never had The Talk?!”

“No.” She hardly even seemed bothered. “I had a few biology lessons at one point, and then Jalil was in charge of giving me The Talk but he didn’t want to so he just gave me a book about it and told me to read it, and then I lost the book. So yeah. I don’t know.”

“And you haven’t, like… figured it out?”

“No, how could I?”

“You’re 17 and you haven’t figured it out? Are you kidding me?!”

“I’m not! I seriously don’t know! I don’t understand half the stuff anyone’s talking about at this school because of it!”

He didn’t even know how to react. “You don’t even know… okay wow, I would not have thought you were the kind of person to be so innocent…”

“Me, innocent?” she scoffed. “The amount of petty crimes I’ve committed should be enough to land me jail time, honestly.”

“I didn’t mean like that, I meant like… you know…”

“Well that too! I know some stuff. Like snogging, making out, whatever you call it, that’s what we were just doing. And if you kiss someone and it leaves a mark, that’s a hockey…”

“Hickey…”

“Yeah, that. See? Not innocent.”

He sighed. “You’re so blissfully unaware…”

“Well now I’m curious. Why don’t you just give me The Talk, right now?”

“What? No – I can’t – that’s too–”

“Are you embarrassed?”

“No,” he lied, knowing he wasn’t fooling her. “But like… oh man, do I have to be the one to do it? I can’t… I can’t do this…”

“Oh come on, now I really wanna know! It’ll finally feel like I’m speaking the same language as everyone else. Pretty please?”

She was doing puppy dog eyes, and they really did not suit her at all. But still… she’d have to find out some time, right?

“Fine,” he said. This was going to be awkward.

 

 

 

Later that night Alix walked back into her dorm room with her snake, still feeling nauseous. It was a good thing that flowerpot had been there for her to throw up in. Hopefully the cleaners would get rid of it soon, or she’d have to throw it out of the window and into the pond or something.

Seriously though… why was she like this? She had heard plenty of people at school all the time, going on about… well… that _thing_ , and they all seemed to like it. And want it. But to her, it sounded about as appealing as having someone shove their toe up your nostril.

Was she supposed to want to do that? Was she just not old enough yet? But then again, she was 17, and everyone else already wanted to… What made her so different? When she told Kim it sounded disgusting and he must be lying, he had just shrugged and promised he wasn’t making it up. And then he’d gone back to the party, presumably to go challenge someone else to a kissing contest, since he was normal enough to like that sort of thing, and she’d gone and chucked up in a flowerpot…

She brushed her teeth and then put on some pyjamas and lay on her bed, closing her eyes. Maybe some sleep would clear her mind. She would wake up tomorrow and just forget this even happened…

The timeline twin was in front of her before she even knew it, a very unimpressed look on her face. And then striding up towards her–

SLAP!

Smacked her right across the face.

“What the _hell_ was that for?!” Alix asked, her patience at an end. Why was this timeline twin so rude all the time? Did she really have the capacity to be such a horrible person?

_“I warned you to learn from my mistakes, didn’t I?”_ the timeline twin snapped. _“But no, you carry on being a total reckless idiot who’s going to end up ruining your life.”_

“What are you talking about? I haven’t done anything wrong!”

_“No, you haven’t – except that you don’t ever use a single one of your brain cells, do you? If you’re trying to mess up your life as much as mine then you’re doing a great job. Next thing you know you’ll be putting that biology lesson you just had into practice with Kim.”_

“Ew, what? No! I’m not that reckless!”

_“Oh, you think I didn’t think that too? Back in those stupid spring holidays? While you were having a fun little sleepover and eating popcorn and watching movies about dinosaurs, I was having a lot less fun thanks to that recklessness that you keep saying doesn’t exist!”_

A feeling of dread was settling over her. “What are you talking about?”

_“That part’s not important,”_ the timeline twin said quickly, seemingly blushing. _“What I’m trying to say is that if you don’t start thinking before acting…”_

Alix wasn’t listening. She was just starting to realize something. “In the spring holidays – you – you blocked out the memories on _purpose_ , because – because–”

_“I told you, that part’s not important–”_

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god you and Kim! You – !” She felt like she was going to throw up again. “What the hell?! Why???”

The timeline twin rolled her eyes. _“Because I thought he would stop hanging out with me if I didn’t do it? Because neither of us ever even thinks for a single second before doing anything? Because I knew something was weird about me for finding it gross when no one else did, and I hated it? Take your pick.”_

“That’s – that’s just – holy _crap_ –”

_“And this is why I said you can’t handle it. And for the record, I haven’t been blocking out any memories at all. It’s you doing it subconsciously because you don’t want to face the fact that you’re an impulsive idiot who’s so afraid of her friends leaving her that she’ll do anything to keep them around, without realizing that if they’re really her friends then that won’t matter to them–”_

“And that’s why you got grounded in the summer holidays!” she yelped, more things occurring to her. This was the worst night ever. “And why you got forcibly betrothed to him! But like… how the hell did dad find out then?”

_“You have access to my memories, you can just–”_

“I am not going into your stupid memories!!!”

_“Fine! Afterwards I went off and sulked at the snake pond for ages, then came back and dumped Kim, then yelled at Jalil for not warning me that it was gonna be that gross, and loads of people overheard. By the time I came back from school for the summer, even my dad knew. So he grounded me and said I have to marry Kim.”_

“What?! That is so messed up! So like, did Kim give you The Talk in the spring holidays or what?”

_“Nope, I figured it out for myself at some point.”_

“And did you throw up too?”

_“Look, we’re getting off the subject here,”_ the timeline twin said. _“The point I’m trying to make is that you actually have to think before acting, or you’ll end up messing things up.”_

“What? But there’s no way I’m gonna just… you know… do that…”

_“You’re focusing on the wrong thing here! What I did wasn’t wrong, I’m a teenager, I can experiment or do what I want, it doesn’t matter. The problem was that I didn’t think before I did it! This is just an example of a larger problem! If you don’t start thinking before doing things, no matter what they are, you’re already on the road to disaster.”_

“But I hate thinking! It just makes me miserable…”

_“There’s a difference between thinking and overthinking, you dolt! If you were a commoner then this probably wouldn’t matter so much, but you’re not. You’re royalty, and your life is automatically more restrictive. So don’t make it even harder on yourself. Don’t overthink. **Think.** ”_

“Okay, fine! I’ll try! But what about Kim then? He’s even more reckless than I am.”

_“He needs someone to be his impulse control. Someone who’s actually good for him. Someone who isn’t you. Because trust me, if me and him managed to go from 0 to 100 in a week, it’s no wonder my life is totally and utterly screwed up right now.”_

Someone to be his impulse control… someone who’s good for him…

“So I need to set him up with someone,” Alix said.

_“You can do whatever you want, I’m done interfering with you. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Now I’ve got to go fix my life, and Adrien’s too, so I’ll be off now.”_ The timeline twin marched off without another word.

Alix opened her eyes and looked at her pet snake, feeling rather glum and rather grossed out at the same time. “Pal, we’ve really gotta set Kim up with someone. The other Kim, I mean. I’m assuming you’re as averse to romance and _other stuff_ as I am.”

The snake just blinked.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

She sighed and closed her eyes again. Tonight had not been a good night. But tomorrow would be a new day, and things were going to change. She would actually start thinking things through before acting. Making sure her life wasn’t ruled by luck alone, just in case it went badly for her.

And she was going to set Kim up with someone.


	35. Finally!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the second of the double chapter update :D I wrote this all the way back in April because I have no restraint when it comes to Kimax. And it's totally my favourite so far.

When Max got a knock on his door early the next morning while he was packing, he assumed it must be Kim. After all, Kim was always the one who was waking up early.

“Kim, go to sleep, you had a late night last night,” Max said through the door.

“What? No, it’s me, Alix! I have to talk to you about something!”

Max opened the door and let her in. “Alix, what are you doing here? You never wake up early!”

“Yeah, well I couldn’t sleep for various reasons.” She was still wearing pyjamas, looking like she had literally only just got out of bed. The snake was wrapped around her neck, as usual.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No, I think I’d just throw up again if I ate anything…”

“You threw up? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

She didn’t look fine at all. It sounded like she was very tired, very grumpy, or maybe both. Even more than usual.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Max asked, a little cautiously.

“Well it’s a really long and weird story so I won’t bother explaining everything, but basically… I have to set Kim up with someone. Someone who isn’t me, I mean. This is a matter of life and death – don’t ask me why or how, just trust me. It has to happen.”

Set Kim up with someone? Max could feel his hopes shooting up before he could stop them. What if she wanted to set _him_ up with Kim? Was that why she was talking to him? Did she know Max liked Kim? Did she want to get them together?

“So I need your help finding someone,” she finished.

Oh. Of course. There was no way she had figured it out – she was more oblivious than everyone else in the class put together. Max almost felt himself physically deflating.

“Do you know if he likes anyone else?” she asked. “Like, even a little bit?”

Max shrugged. Kim didn’t seem interested in anyone at all lately. Lucky him.

“Well I guess there was Adrien all that time ago,” she continued, “but that’s not happening since he and Marinette are way too into each other… which is a really good thing actually…”

It didn’t matter anyway. Kim didn’t love Max like that, he never had and never would, no one else even considered it worth thinking about… so why couldn’t Max just move on, like a sensible person? Why were his feelings constantly getting in the way of logic like this? It was so frustrating!

“… and he said there were those twins from Cheng who Marinette tried to set him up with, but he would have gone for it himself if he was that bothered… and if they’re all the way over in Cheng then I can’t help him with that and I’ve already made up my mind to be his winggirl…”

And of course no one had noticed that Max liked Kim. Despite how glaringly obvious he could be about it on occasion, no one knew or cared. Except Juleka once pointing it out, but that hardly counted when Juleka herself had once been in a very similar situation. Anyway, it didn’t matter. It just didn’t matter!

“… but what about someone like Nathaniel? I know he’s all quiet and stuff but he’s single, and Kim’s into guys, right? Maybe that could work, I don’t know… won’t be easy, though, Nath’s such a mystery… I really gotta talk to him more…”

It would be better to just accept it. Kim wasn’t into Max, that was it. End of story. Logically, scientifically, in every way that mattered and made sense, it was not going to happen. Max had told himself this time and time again. But why would his heart not listen to his brain? Why did love have to be so complicated and annoying? And _painful?_

“… heck, if I’m being honest Kim should just date _you_ , I mean, you two would be perfect for each other!”

Hang on… what?!

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked. “Oh wait – Max, I was just… I was joking! Sheesh, I know you guys don’t like each other like that, or you already would have got together… okay yeah maybe that joke was in bad taste… sorry…”

No! She had hit the nail right on the head, and yet still looked straight past it!

“Max, are you okay? Seriously, it was just a joke! I’m sorry!”

She was joking? How could she be joking? When she had taken everyone else seriously – Adrien, the Bell twins, even _Nathaniel_ – and yet not Max?

“I promise I didn’t mean it! I was just being an idiot, look, I know you’re not really in love with Kim or anything–”

“But I AM in love with Kim!”

He quickly snapped his hands over his mouth, but it was too late. It had slipped right out.

“Wait… are you serious?”

He tried to say yes, but the only noise he could make was a sob. Was he crying? He hadn’t even noticed until now how close to tears he had been. But yes, he was crying now, his eyes overflowing with so many tears he couldn’t even see. He just nodded his head, not even looking at her.

“Aw, _Max_ …”

She stepped forwards and gave him a big hug. He tried to stop crying, but now that he’d started it just seemed impossible.

“I’m sorry I have no idea what to do or say in these situations,” Alix said. “But, uh, it’s cool that you admitted it, I guess? How long have you liked Kim for anyway?”

Max took off his glasses to wipe the tears away with his sleeve. “Y-years…”

“Wow, okay… and have you ever told him?”

“No, I couldn’t do that! H-he… he doesn’t love me like that… he’s my f-friend…”

Alix just pulled Max straight into another hug. “Dude! Are you telling me that all through last year, you were trying to set him up with me even though you liked him? Why?”

“He should be happy!”

“Well so should you!”

“I’ll be happy if he’s h-happy…”

She frowned at him. “Alright, that’s it. New plan. I am going to get you and Kim together if it’s the last thing I do.”

“W-what? No!”

“But you like him!”

“But what if he doesn’t like me back like that?”

“You’re a cool guy, he could totally fall for you,” she said. “If I could just tell him that you like him, then–”

“No! You’re not doing that. No way.” Max put his glasses back on and cleared his throat. “If anyone is going to tell Kim the truth, it’s me. You have to promise you won’t tell him.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. But still, I’m totally gonna make sure he realizes how awesome you are.”

“He already thinks I’m awesome, but…”

“And hopefully he’ll fall for you too.”

“But what if he doesn’t?”

“Then he’ll still be your best friend, I can guarantee you that. I mean, he’s still friends with me, right? And that’s not gonna change… I’ll _make sure_ that doesn’t change, ever…”

“Yes, you’re right,” Max said. “I suppose I can find someone else.”

“Oh yeah, definitely. You deserve someone awesome, and I will absolutely help you find one. You like guys, right? There are tonnes of cool guys around who would like you. Anyone would like you. I know Kim totally could, heck, I bet everyone in the class could totally fall for you. Well, except me, being… whatever I am…”

“Aromantic.”

“… What?”

Max pushed his glasses back up his nose from where they were slipping off. “Aromantic. I was reading through the most recent science journal from back home and there’s an article about something which… well, it reminded me of you. You never have crushes on people, do you? Sounds aromantic to me.”

Alix stared at him. “Are you saying… there’s a word for that? An actual word?”

“Supposedly.”

“So like, this whole time, it wasn’t me being a weirdo or something… I’m just… aromantic?”

“Would you like me to lend you the journal so you can have a look yourself?”

“Yes please!”

“It’s back home so I’ll get it when I go back to visit later today, and then I’ll give it to you when I next see you.”

“Thanks, Max, thank you so much!” She looked far more pleased now than she had done earlier. Almost… relieved.

“Anyway, I had better finish packing…”

“Yeah, I’ll leave you alone now. But you’re awesome for telling me about your crush on Kim, and I am so gonna be the best winggirl ever.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Have fun during the holidays, and see you soon!”

“You too!”

She left the room, taking the snake with her.

No longer crying now, Max realized how much better he felt at having actually told someone his feelings properly. And not just anyone, but Alix, one of his best friends. She was always good at making him feel better, even if she had no clue what she was doing. Just talking to her had been enough. And she was going to help him, too! That was awesome.

Perhaps… it might even work?

 

 

Kim was up very early that morning too, taking a jog around the grounds to clear his head. Last night had been wild, but one thing was clear to him – he was an idiot. A complete, utter, idiot. A kissing contest, really? He was never eating chocolate again.

“Good morning Kim, I didn’t see you there!”

It was Rose up ahead, tending to some flowers. She waved at him brightly.

“Oh hey Rose,” he said, slowing to a halt. “Are you gardening?”

“Yep! I work here on Saturday mornings. It’s ever so much fun! I’d love to get Juleka to do it with me too, but she never wakes up before noon on a Saturday. She deserves lots of sleep.”

“My friends never wake up early on weekends either. Well, Max sometimes does, but Alix would sleep through an earthquake…”

Rose giggled. “Oh, does Alix still count as a friend? After last night?”

“Ignore everything that happened yesterday,” Kim said quickly, not looking at her. “We were just being idiots, it didn’t mean anything… I mean last year I kissed Adrien under the mistletoe too, so–”

Wait, was that supposed to be a secret? How many people even knew about that? At least this was Rose he was talking to, the sweetest person in the class, she wouldn’t judge.

“You really are quite a casanova, aren’t you?” she said. “But I’m so glad more people at this school are… well, like me. This class is so much more gay than I realized!”

That word again. “What does that mean?”

“What, gay?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, it just means… well, it’s a sort of umbrella term I suppose. Girls who like girls. Boys liking boys. People liking the same gender.”

“Ah, I get it, that makes sense…”

So it was another one of those words. If you swung one way you were gay, if you swung the other way you were straight, more than one way made you bisexual, if you didn’t swing any way at all then you were probably just Alix…

Max was gay then, wasn’t he? He’d said he was only interested in boys, and he’d even specifically said he was gay back in the spring holidays when… he…

Wait a second. What exactly had Max said?

_“I’m gay– GOOD! I’m good!”_

And then run off with a nosebleed, blushing furiously.

All the while, Kim had been standing there in front of him…

… _shirtless._

“Kim, are you alright?” Rose asked, frowning up at him.

“I’m… I…”

It was impossible to answer. His brain was only letting him think about one thing all of a sudden, and that was Max.

“Perhaps you should have got more sleep!” Rose suggested.

“Rose, are you… are you definitely _sure_ that’s what gay means? Like, certain? 100%?”

“Of course I am. Why? Is something wrong?”

Well, was something wrong? He didn’t even know. Something was only just occurring to him, something he had never even remotely considered before…

Did Max _like_ him?

“I need to think,” he muttered, before speeding off and leaving Rose standing there rather confused.

He didn’t know where he was headed but his feet automatically took him to the good old thinking fountain. Restless, he paced up and down, letting his thoughts careen around his mind.

Did Max have a crush on him? He had never shown any obvious interest. But then again, Max wasn’t the complete trainwreck that Kim was when it came to romance… or at least, Kim assumed so. But still, if that incident in spring was to be believed, then did that mean Max really loved Kim?

Well, it could just have been a “hot shirtless guy suddenly appears!” moment, nothing to do with Kim himself. Maybe it was just that Max had been taken by surprise or something. After all, Kim was no longer romantically interested in Alix but he’d probably still have to fan himself if he saw her in a sports bra again. It might just be the same kind of thing with Max.

But what about afterwards, when Max had been crying over the phone about something? What if…

What if he had been heartbroken?

Kim wanted to kick himself. Poor Max, he had been so upset over something, and Kim had been selfish enough to go on about himself! If Max really did like Kim, that must have been so painful for him! No wonder he hadn’t wanted to talk!

But after the spring holidays things had been back to normal. Maybe Max had got over it? Hopefully he had, Kim did not like the idea of his dear best friend suffering heartbreak. In that case Max probably wasn’t into Kim anymore, if he ever had been…

Did any of that even make any sense? Kim thrust his face into his hands, overwhelmed. Everything was so confusing! He just couldn’t think, his brain wasn’t working properly. Usually he would easily solve that by talking to Max, but that wasn’t an option right now! After all, if Max really had liked him, then Kim asking him about it might bring up painful memories or something – and he didn’t want poor Max to have to relive any of that!

No, he would have to somehow figure this out himself, but it was just so hard to think without Max’s calming influence here, he just didn’t know what to do–

“Kim! I knew I’d find you here!”

He looked up to see Alix walking towards him. Oh, that was just _great_ , the one person who made his brain even less likely to work…

“I have to talk to you,” she said quickly. “I just wanna say that last night did not happen and we are never speaking of it again. Ever. This is a matter of life and death, okay?”

Kim nodded, not even really caring about what she was saying. His thoughts were still far too preoccupied with Max.

“Dude, you okay?”

“I don’t know!” Kim began pacing around again. “I just realized that… well… I think Max might have liked me a while ago. As in, _like_ -like. But I don’t know!”

“So like… why don’t you just ask him about it?”

“No, I can’t! What if it upsets him or something?”

“Uh… I don’t know, I just really think you should talk to him about it. No specific reason or anything.”

“But I don’t want to bring up something that might hurt him to think about, and anyway I don’t even know if I’m right or not… I just wish he was here and… I could sort things out but…”

The wheels in his head were turning too fast for him to keep up with aloud. Poor Max, he didn’t deserve heartbreak, he deserved someone amazing, the world, the whole universe! And to think of him being upset, pining away with no hope, no one to even vent to… no, it was too much!

Max deserved happiness – Kim would fight anyone who dared break poor Max’s heart like that. He wanted to fight _himself_ for doing it. Max had always been there for him, always so incredible and sweet and just so great to be around. Kim needed him. If Max was unhappy, Kim was unhappy too. He would do anything to fix it, absolutely _anything!_ And the thought of his poor, sweet Max in miserable unrequited love with him was just –!

It hit him like a freight train. He stopped dead in his tracks, his feet suddenly feeling unsteady beneath him.

“Alix… what does it feel like to be in love with someone?”

She shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person. Apparently I’m ‘aromantic’. Anyway, don’t you already know?”

“No, not properly… I mean I’ve had crushes on people and stuff, but… true love I mean. Because… something f-feels different…”

He slowly sank to his knees, feeling like the whole world was listing around him alarmingly. Things did feel different. Things felt very different indeed.

Softly, almost whispering, he said, “I think I’m in love with Max.”

It was like someone had lit a little candle in his heart, making him feel warm and fuzzy inside all of a sudden. Just saying the words… it felt so good. So right.

“I think I’m in love with Max,” he repeated, a little louder. “I’m… yeah. I’m in love with him. Prince Max. My best friend.”

Almost at once every colour around him seemed brighter, all the flowers and plants popping out of their surroundings. The candle burning in his heart multiplied into an inferno. Everything just felt so freshly beautiful.

“I love Max. He’s just the best, and… I think I’ve loved him the whole time, I just didn’t notice… I love him so much!”

He closed his eyes and laughed, feeling relieved and re-energized at the same time. By the time he opened them again, Alix was looking at him with the biggest grin on her face.

“This is perfect!” she said. “This is so, so, so perfect – you so have to tell him! Do you want me to tell him for you, or–”

“No, I wanna do it myself,” Kim replied. “And plus… I gotta think about it more. I’m never asking out someone on a whim again. Or, uh, confessing that I like someone on a whim either. So don’t tell him.”

“Are you kidding me? Fine…”

“But thanks for your support.”

“No, thank you! Listen, if you marry Max it’ll be so perfect, because then my evil twin will stop yelling at me and I won’t end up under house arrest going mad and having to elope with Adrien!”

“Um… what?”

“Long story. Anyway, I am super happy for you, and I will be the best winggirl I possibly can. Speaking of which, Max is leaving for home this morning, remember? It might be a good idea for you to say bye to him…”

Kim was already running off before she had finished speaking. “Thanks Alix!” he called from the distance.

 

He arrived at the door to Max’s room as quickly as he possibly could, not even bothering to slow to a walk whenever he passed a teacher. Maybe he’d get in trouble for that… never mind. Seeing Max was more important.

He knocked on the door. Max opened it soon, looking somewhat tired, like he hadn’t got enough sleep… but that didn’t even matter. He looked so sweet anyway – those big brown eyes magnified in his glasses, that expression he always had when looking at Kim… It was just so, so sweet!

“Good morning Kim,” Max said. “How are you?”

Even his voice! It was just so endearing, Kim could listen to it forever! How had it taken him this long to realize how much he loved Max?

“I’m awesome, thanks!” Kim said, putting on his biggest, brightest smile. “How are you?”

“I’m pretty good too, actually. Could have done with more sleep, though.”

“Get some sleep on the ocean liner, okay? Sleep deprivation is no good!”

Max blinked up at him a couple of times. “Yes… of course…”

“Sorry, do I seem really overly weirdly cheerful today?” Kim babbled. “It’s because you’re awesome. You’re so, super, completely awesome!”

“Oh Kim… so are you…”

Kim put his arms around Max and hugged him tight enough to lift him right off the ground. “I’m gonna miss you in these holidays!”

“I’m… I’m going to m-miss you too…”

Just being here with Max was already making Kim’s brain work better than usual. Everything seemed so much clearer now than it had before.

Yes, he was in love with Max! That was for certain. It had come on so gradually he never even noticed. But that was why he always seemed to love spending time in Max’s company over the past few months, being so much more affectionate and clingy than usual, always just feeling better around him and looking forward to hanging out with him, like it was the only thing that mattered in the world…

It was crystal clear. He loved Max. He had fallen so hard for his best friend that it was almost no wonder he hadn’t been interested in anyone else.

And did Max love him back?

At this point, it didn’t even matter to him. All that mattered was that Max cared about him, in whatever way it was, and that just made him feel so happy he could cry.

“Enjoy your holidays!” Kim said, putting Max down after what had to be at least a minute.

“You too, Kim!”

Max was smiling up at him so charmingly, Kim wanted to just propose to him on the spot! But recklessness was not going to get him anywhere good. No, it would be better to actually think about things sensibly this time. Anyway, for now, just being able to see Max was enough.

“In fact,” Max continued, smiling even more, “I was thinking, would you like to stay in my kingdom for the holidays? It might be nicer than you having to be a third wheel to Marinette and Adrien.”

Stay? With Max? In his kingdom? Was there anything more _awesome_ than that?

“Yes please!” Kim gushed. “I love your kingdom so much, it’s gonna be so much fun!”

“Excellent! In that case you’ll have to pack in half an hour so that we can catch the ocean liner in time. Can you do that?”

“Heck yeah, of course I can do that. I can do anything.”

Max chuckled, so very sweetly. “I’ll see you at the front gates in half an hour then, alright? Don’t be late!”

“I won’t!”

Kim took one last long look at Max, then turned and ran towards his own room. Half an hour wasn’t much time to pack, but he felt so full of energy right now. The prospect of spending the next several weeks with someone so important to him was giving him all kinds of strength.

Oh, he just loved Max. He loved him to pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're binge-reading this right now, TAKE A BREAK. Sleep. Drink water. Eat. Go do some stuff. Ily <3


	36. Picture perfect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be finishing off some other fics before I keep updating this one but I can't stop ;_;

Marinette and Adrien took almost a week to travel all the way back to Cheng, having to take the carriage since the trains were still not running, as always. Ever since Agreste had started taking over territory deep into Asia, all the rail lines had “mysteriously” been stopped with no sign of starting up again, even for royalty. It was no secret that the empire was using them to transport mined goods back to their capital and preventing anyone else from sharing.

“Marinette, it’s so good to see you!” Queen Sabine exclaimed when they arrived, rushing forwards hug her daughter. Formal royal customs and protocol were rarely followed in Marinette’s tight-knit family. “I’m so glad you made it here safely.”

“What do you mean?” Marinette asked.

“Nothing in particular,” King Tom said, joining the hug. “It’s just that the state of the world has been a bit… _tense_ , lately. Like anything could go wrong at any point. But don’t worry – you’ll always be safe here at home!”

“Where’s Kim?” Sabine asked, looking at the carriage, frowning. “And who’s this?”

“This is, um, Felix,” Marinette said, grabbing Adrien’s hand and pulling him over. “He’s a noble, a refugee fleeing from the Agreste Empire when they took his homeland. I said he could stay here with us for the holidays.”

“It is nice to meet you, Felix,” Sabine said. “You can always feel free to come here whenever you need to. Our kingdoms do not support the Agreste Empire at all.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Adrien said, bowing. “It is an honour to be here.”

“And where is Kim?” Tom asked. “I thought he would be staying here with us too. The more guests, the merrier!”

“He went to stay with Max,” Marinette said, trying not to smile too much. She could guess perfectly well why Kim had wanted to stay with Max so much. She had been suspecting it right since she saw how much Kim missed Max during the summer holidays, and her suspicions were practically confirmed when Kim had quickly dashed into her room to let her know he wouldn’t need to stay in Cheng this time. His eyes had practically been glowing.

“Oh, well that’s nice for him!” Tom continued. “It’s good to explore and make friends with leaders from all over the world. Having allies will be very important for him.”

Friends… allies… neither of those quite captured it. Marinette tried not to grin again.

“Speaking of which,” Sabine said, “his grandmother, the Queen-Regent of Lê Chiến, has been corresponding with us again and has a proposition, though of course we won’t decide on anything without your input. You and Kim are close in age and good friends, and our countries would certainly be stronger with a formal alliance between them – especially considering everything that’s going on with Agreste right now. So what do you say to a betrothal?”

“W-what?” Marinette could feel the blood rushing away from her face.

“You don’t have to decide straightaway! It’s just an option.”

“Me? Betrothed to Kim?” She shook her head. “He’s… he’s great and all, but… but…”

“Remember, marriages between royals are usually for necessity and politics, not love. At least Kim is someone you get along with. If you agree to this now, you won’t have to worry that later you’ll end up engaged to someone much worse.”

Marinette gulped. How to explain to her parents that she was already in love with Adrien, the heir to the throne of the empire that was her sworn enemy? How to explain that Kim was clearly already interested in someone else?

“And didn’t you used to have a crush on Kim?” Tom asked, winking at her.

“What? That was like 10 years ago!” She blushed just remembering it. Alright, she had once had a bit of a soft spot for Kim when they were little kids. But she was long over that! Kim was more like a brother to her these days.

“Well just have a think about it, alright? We won’t force you into anything, we promise. We just want safety and stability for our countries, and happiness for our wonderful daughter and her good friend. It would be a good match.”

“I’m in love with Felix!” Marinette blurted out, gripping Adrien’s hand tightly in her own. “Felix and I, we’re… we’re a couple.”

Her parents blinked, silent for a few seconds, taken aback. They recovered quickly.

“In that case we will have to tell Kim’s grandmother that you will be rejecting the proposal,” Sabine said, smiling. “It would be quite unfair for you to have to marry someone else when you’re already together with someone who would be a perfectly appropriate match.”

“I’m so happy for you two!” Tom said, giving them both a clap on the back. “Say, Felix, where did you say you were from again?”

“An area near the 1st region,” Adrien mumbled. Marinette could feel his hand shaking and sweating. Well, he wasn’t exactly lying – his home palace really was near the 1st region.

“And what title are you? We need to know how to formally address you.”

“Um… Duke of the Alpine,” he replied. That wasn’t entirely a lie either – one of Adrien’s many titles included Duke of the Alpine. Thank goodness Cheng was so far away that it would be hard for her parents to verify his claim. She really did not like having to lie to them, but it was necessary for Adrien’s safety. No one could know he was here.

“Wonderful! Well, Duke Felix, we look forward to getting to know you. Come on inside and we’ll show you around!”

“Thank you,” Adrien mumbled, moving to follow them.

Marinette breathed a sigh of relief. At least Adrien was safe for now. How long was he going to have to stay undercover for? There was no end in sight to the tyranny of the Agreste Empire, nor its enmity with Lê Chiến. What would happen if war broke out? What if Adrien was discovered, and forced to return home? Nothing boded well. Marinette had no idea how her relationship with him was going to survive.

But at least he was okay for the time being. That was the most important thing.

 

 

Meanwhile, over on another part of the planet, Kim had already spent a week with Max in Kanté. Things were quite similar to how they had been last year, and yet… something was different, too. Kim couldn’t help wondering if somehow the sun was shining more brightly, or perhaps the air was fresher, or maybe everything had been cleaned thoroughly enough to sparkle.

“Kim, slow down!” Max called, half-laughing, as Kim pulled him along by the hand. “We’ve got plenty of time!”

“But it’s more fun to run!”

Within a few more seconds they had reached where they were running to – the top of the large grassy dome overlooking the capital city. It was one of the places Max had taken him while sightseeing last year. Kim remembered how magical it had felt here last time, seeing the bustling metropolis beneath them, almost too futuristic to believe, with aeroplanes zooming through the sky above them…

And yes, there it was again! This time it looked so magical it felt like being in a dream, or in some other world entirely. There were maglev train tracks stretching off into the desert, colourful skyscrapers for miles around, thousands and thousands of cars driving along the immaculate roads! Everything was amazing!

Kim pulled out of his pocket a little camera he had bought from a tourist shop earlier. He lifted it up to take a picture of the view…

Hmm, something was missing. It wasn’t possible to get the scope of the city without something in the foreground to contrast it.

“Max, can you just stand there for a second?” Kim asked, pointing at the very top of the hill.

“You want to take a picture of me?”

“Yeah! This picture would look awesome with you in it!”

Max went and stood on the very top of the summit. “How’s this?”

“That’s perfect!” Kim had to stop himself from saying “ _You’re_ perfect”. He looked through the lens and took the photo. This was going to look amazing!

“Thanks!” Max said, coming back over to him. “I can’t wait to see what these look like when we get the film developed.”

“Me too!” Kim put the camera back in his pocket. “Hey, do you think I could cartwheel all the way down this hill? How many cartwheels would it take?”

Max frowned. “My guess is about 8, but I would also guess that broken wrists or ankles would be a likely outcome, so I would advise against it.”

That was so sweet! Max was concerned for his wellbeing! Wait, of course he was – he was Kim’s best friend. Duh. Kim knew he needed to stop taking every little interaction as romantic in nature. He was too sappy and lovesick for his own good.

“You’re right,” he said. “Anyway Max, today was another awesome day, so uh… thanks for showing me around again. I hope you’re not getting tired.”

“Don’t worry, I’m definitely not! It’s not every day I get to show my favourite city in the world to one of my best friends in the world.”

The way Max was standing there beaming at him, in front of the beautiful landscape, the wind ruffling his hair...

“Kim? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” Kim said quickly. “Fine. Just, uh, tired. Maybe we should go back to the palace now and get some rest. After all, we’ve got that yuletide diplomatic ball thing to attend tomorrow, right?”

Max’s kingdom was hosting this year’s Peace Ball that took place every December, with leaders from every country in the International Alliance attending. It was probably going to be posh and formal and boring, but at least Max would be there too. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad.

“Yes, we need to prepare for that,” Max said, nodding. “In fact, I’ve got a surprise in store for you about that.”

“Ooh, really? What?”

“You’ll see very soon!”

He chuckled and began walking back down the hill, towards where the guards were waiting. Kim just took his hand again and ran, pulling him down behind him. He could hear Max laughing away so happily. It was so cute!

 

They arrived back at the palace soon enough, and Kim went back to his room to rest. He lay on the bed and stared up at the ceiling fan above him, the blades spinning so fast they merged into a blur. Almost like his own heartbeat. He couldn’t get this stupid grin off his face. One thought kept running through his mind:

_Thank goodness for Max._

He was serious. Not just because he was in love with him, but in general. Thank goodness Max was around. Everything recently had been going so wrong – the flu pandemic, the looming war between Agreste and Lê Chiến, his grandfather’s suspicious death, the fact that he was going to soon be responsible for an entire country, just everything being so confusing he could barely sort out his own emotions or even tell up from down.

But here, with Max by his side, were a few weeks of respite. It was like being in a blissful bubble of peace and happiness. Being able to spend time with Max, no school to get in the way, just forgetting about all his worries for a little while. This was exactly what he needed in his life right now. It was almost no wonder he had fallen in love with Max – how could he resist someone who was just this perfect for him?

That being said, he still wasn’t sure whether or not Max loved him back like that. Of course Max cared about him, that much was certain. But romantically? That was another matter.

When should he tell him? This sort of thing should not be rushed, that had already caused him enough trouble in the past. Asking out Chloé on a whim had been a disaster, kissing Adrien at the winter party in first year had made things awkward between them, and running away immediately after confessing to Alix had caused him a lot more stress than he needed. This time he needed to think it through properly.

What about the Cupid Festival? A day like that would be perfect for confessing his true feelings! And anyway, Max was his best friend. Even if he didn’t love Kim back like that, he wouldn’t be weirded out or anything. Things would still go well. Yes, the Cupid Festival seemed like a good day to do it. He had made up his mind.

Until then, though…

He covered his face with his hands, knowing he was blushing, not entirely caring. Spending time with Max was so much fun! It always had been, but something was just so different now. And Kim had had plenty of crushes before, too many to count, and he had been so head over heels for people he didn’t think he would be able to get over it, and yet…

This still felt different somehow. Never before had he fallen in love so slowly, so gently. Usually he just met someone cute for the first time and that was it, he would be smitten. But not this time. The fact that he loved Max now just seemed like an extension of their close friendship. That they had grown closer and closer over the years, and at some point Kim’s feelings for him slipped from platonic to romantic without him even realizing. He was sure that hadn’t happened with anyone else before.

With Chloé, he’d just talked to her a little at her birthday banquet, feeling so flustered at how pretty and powerful she was, and then decided to ask her out when he saw her again at school. There had been nothing slow about it. With Adrien, he hadn’t realized what he was feeling at the time was a crush, since he didn’t know that was possible, but he definitely had strong feelings for him right from the beginning. It only hit him at the winter party. And as for Alix, well… Kim could easily pinpoint the moment he realized he liked her. But his crush on her had always felt very separate from their friendship, almost like it was oddly superficial despite how strong it did indeed get.

But Max! Kim thought back over the past few months, trying to recall everything. He had missed Max’s company so much over the summer holidays, more than he had expected to… he had been so grateful to see Max go into quarantine just for him… he felt so oddly happy waking up every day and knowing Max was there with him… and he won arm wrestles just by hearing Max laugh… cuddled with him after the earthquake… cried into his arms after receiving that letter from home… not wanted to put him down after the spider incident–

There was a knock on the door. Kim sat up, wondering if that was Max. It must be – who else could it be? No one else here really bothered talking to him.

His brain felt strangely reckless all of a sudden. In the spring holidays, when he had answered the door without a shirt on, Max had run away with a nosebleed, right? What if he did it again? Just to see if Max still liked him, or was he over him now? Wait, was that even a good idea? Oh – who cared!

He pulled his shirt off and scrunched it up in his hand, really not thinking about it properly, then ran towards the door and opened it to see–

_ALIX?!_

What was _she_ doing here?!

She took one look up at him and burst into laughter. “Kim, what the… did you think I was Max or something, were you like… trying to impress him or what…?!” She wiped a few tears out of her eyes, she was laughing so much. Even her snake looked like it was laughing somehow.

“Don’t tell him,” Kim muttered, grumpily putting his shirt back on. Why did the shirt thing never freaking _work_ , darn it?!

“Don’t worry, I won’t,” she said, still grinning rather annoyingly. “But I don’t think you need to worry about impressing Max like that, he already knows perfectly well how shredded you are. You know, because of the spring holidays? When you did this exact same thing except you were trying to impress me instead? Which wouldn’t have worked because–”

“So what are you doing here?” Kim asked quickly. He didn’t want to think about the spring holidays.

“Setting you up with Max, of course. And also I have to attend the Peace Ball since I’m a pharaoh and my kingdom practically founded the International Alliance, so yeah. At least it won’t be so boring this year with you two here. Posh events like these _can_ be very romantic, I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. So you and Max have to get together.”

“I was thinking maybe the Cupid Festival might be better…”

“What, really? That overrated festival day where people use it as an excuse to be all mushy in public and act like romance is the only kind of love there is, or all that matters? No thanks, I am far too _aromantic_ for that – which reminds me of another reason I’m here. I have to get that science journal off Max. Don’t ask. Oh, and one more reason – to give you this.”

She handed him a little box-like thing with an electric screen and buttons on it.

“Is this a phone?” he asked. It looked a bit like one, but the ones he had usually seen had wires connecting them to the electricity lines. The only portable ones he had seen were Max’s phone and Alix’s sceptre-phone-thing, whatever it was.

“Yep, it’s a phone, and it’s yours now. Special gift from my kingdom.”

What? An expensive portable phone… just for him?

“You really didn’t have to,” he mumbled, trying to ignore the fact that his eyes were suddenly watering.

“Oh shush, you have to keep it. Anyway, you can use it to properly keep in touch with your family once they’ve fixed the telecommunication lines, without having to send letters! And also this phone has an update with the very latest technology, where you can send people messages by typing them in using the buttons. Kind of like sending a letter, except instantaneous. Look.”

She grabbed it off him and selected the little letter icon from the menu, then showed him the two phone numbers already stored in his phone – hers and Max’s. All you had to do was type in any message, then select who to send it to, then press enter and – voila! It was simple.

“That’s actually really cool,” he said, taking the phone back. “Seriously, thank you so much!”

“Hey, it’s no problem. You deserve some good things to happen to you now. Your year has been pretty sucky so far.”

Without even needing to think, he bent down and hugged her. “Thanks for being the coolest best friend ever. And your year hasn’t exactly been the greatest so far either, with all the like… timeline nonsense and stuff, so…”

“Oh man, don’t even bring up those stupid timelines,” she said.

“Why, what happened now?”

“You don’t wanna know. Like trust me, you really, _really_ , do not wanna know.”

“Are you sure?” He grinned. “What, is it too ‘embarrassing’ to tell me about again?”

She whacked his arm with her sceptre. “It’s embarrassing for you too, you dolt. Anyway, I’ve got a science journal to be reading, so I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah, bye.”

She left, and Kim closed the door. He looked down at his new phone. This thing… could it really be used to send messages to people thousands of miles away? All the way on the other side of the earth? And she had just given it to him like it was no big deal?

Those telecommunication lines had to be fixed soon. And he had to talk to his family properly.


	37. The Peace Ball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this chapter is loooong... anyway, a lil Nino headcanon I've been meaning to get in for ages, hope it's alright :D

When Max had said that there was a surprise in store for Kim, he had assumed that the surprise must be Alix coming to visit. And then after she had given him that portable telephone present, he had guessed that must be part of it. He couldn’t have been more wrong.

“KIM!” Prince Nino screeched from the entrance hall, running over and practically knocking him down with a hug. “What’s up, dude?”

“Nino?! What are you doing here?” Kim just hugged him back, confused, while Max chuckled away next to him. Most of the surrounding servants looked rather confused too. Usually royalty behaved much more respectably than yelling gleefully and tackle-hugging people.

“Lahiffe is one of the countries in the International Alliance so we get invited to the Peace Ball every year. I decided to come along since it’s in Max’s kingdom this time and I’ll get to see all you lot again. And I’ve brought someone else with me too!”

Princess Alya walked into view, grinning and waving. “Hi everyone! I was staying in Lahiffe for the holidays anyway so I thought, why not come along?”

“This is awesome!” Kim said. “With all of us here there’s no way the Peace Ball’s gonna be boring!”

“So wait, how many people from our class are here?” Nino asked.

“There’s me, Kim, Alix, and the two of you,” Max said, counting off on his fingers. “Five of us. Unless someone else we know just happens to randomly pop up. I hadn’t even realized Alya would be here. It really is good to have more people though.”

“Anyway, we’d better go get sorted before the ball starts later,” Alya said, putting an arm around Nino. “I’ve never been to a ball this prestigious before. It’ll be very interesting.”

“Alright, well see you guys again later!” Kim waved at them and then went back off towards his room, with Max heading in the same direction.

Alya turned straight to Nino and said, “This kingdom. It’s so advanced. _How is it so advanced???_ They have posh cars and maglev trains and aeroplanes and portable phones and plastics and–”

“I know, right?” Nino said. “I’ve only been here a few times but it’s just the coolest place ever. No wonder Max is so smart. But like… you’re really smart too, and I bet your kingdom’s awesome too…”

Alya poked the tip of his nose. “Of course my kingdom’s awesome. But not like this. And oh boy, they have the _best_ painkillers here, that’s what I was buying back at the train station shop. ‘Cause, er, period pains are not fun. I hate them so much.”

Dare he say what he was thinking? He had been meaning to for a while now, since he was getting so much closer with Alya, but it just never felt like the right time. Maybe it would be better to get it out of the way quickly, nonchalantly. No need to make a big deal of it. Alya was chill, she wouldn’t care.

He took a deep breath and said quietly, “Me too.”

For a few seconds she just looked at him, a puzzled frown on her face. He held his breath, wondering if it had been a bad idea to say that. But then she smiled again, taking his hand in hers and holding it tight.

“You hate period pains too?”

“Yeah. They suck. So much. It was worst during quarantine when I was dying of the flu anyway.”

“I know, right?” She laughed. “At least we know that the painkillers here work wonders, so it’ll be easier to deal with.”

“Yeah…”

Oh, thank goodness. She hadn’t freaked out. To be fair, he had been wondering if she already knew somehow. She had a spy network, she was smart and observant, maybe she had figured it out. After all, Nino had once come across an outdated royalty census book in the school library that had still referred to the heir to the throne of Lahiffe as “Princess Nina”, so it was possible that there were other students who knew or had guessed.

Nina… he hadn’t been called that name in a long time. Thankfully his family had always been supportive, and the rich and friendly neighbouring countries were a great place to order the relevant elixirs from – the ones that stopped his voice from staying too high, or his chest getting too big. If only there was one that could permanently stop periods too.

Anyway, at least now that Alya knew, he would have someone to complain about the suckiness of periods with! Hopefully nothing else would change between them. Nino was still Nino, no matter what, and he trusted that she would respect that.

 

 

Back in his room, Kim put on the best áo dài he had – a bright red one with golden patterns adorning the fabric. He slicked his hair up with hair gel and put on some cologne. Then he stood in front of the mirror for at least 10 minutes, admiring himself from every angle, secretly wishing he could be someone else so that he could just date himself. Oh yes. He looked absolutely _smoking_ , and he knew it. Finger guns out, dazzling smile on. There was no way Max would be able to resist his charms!

The cuckoo clock in the corner of the room started chiming. He glanced towards it to see…

What?! 8 o clock already? He was late! How had no one come to get him? Had he really spent that long checking out his own reflection? Yikes. He rushed out of the room and towards the great hall, ignoring the guards and servants snickering away behind their hands as they watched him run.

He was slightly out of breath when he reached the entrance to the hall. The servant outside had what looked like an electric microphone in one hand and a long scroll of paper in the other.

“What is your name and title?” the servant asked, sounding bored.

Seriously? Did he not know Kim’s name and title already? Kim had seen this servant plenty of times before – heck, he had even spoken to him on the odd occasion. There was no way he didn’t know.

“Emperor Palpatine of Narnia,” he snapped.

“Huh… I can’t see that name on here…” The servant was looking down the scroll of paper, eyebrows furrowed.

“I was kidding, oh my _gosh_ , my name is Kim and you know it!”

“Yes, but I was just checking that you’re not an imposter or something! You have to know your own name and title!”

Kim didn’t believe it, since the servant was smirking. He was messing with him!

“I am Prince Kim of Lê Chiến, and I’m not an imposter. No imposter could possibly look this good.” He ran a hand through his hair.

The servant gulped down a laugh. “Okay, yes, I see your name here now. Great. Now before you go in I have to announce you to the hall.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“This is the annual Peace Ball, of course it’s necessary.”

The servant opened the doors to reveal that the great hall had been transformed, with decorations everywhere, beautiful mood lighting, and was filled with hundreds of people. Some nearer the door had turned to look at Kim, frowning a little. Ugh, they were probably annoyed that he was late.

Tapping the microphone a few times, the servant grinned and said into it, “Welcoming to the Peace Ball our honoured guest from afar, the most esteemed Emperor Palpatine of N–”

Kim grabbed the microphone and yanked it off him, hastily saying, “Prince Kim of Lê Chiến! Prince Kim. Yeah. That’s my name.”

The servant grabbed the microphone back, still grinning. The royal guests were watching with expressions varying between amusement and distaste. How embarrassing. And if this was an electric microphone then surely the whole hall must have heard that? Curse this stupid servant!

“You’d better go in now,” the servant said to him, looking so smug that Kim wanted to smash his head in.

“You! What’s your name?”

“Just call me Adam.”

“Adam, huh? Well don’t think you’ve got away with this. I challenge you to a… a…”

“A sword duel?” Adam yawned. “How typically royal of you.”

Oh, a snarky servant, huh? Kim had to stop himself from smiling. Most of the servants back at his home palace were like this. They weren’t afraid to say what was on their mind (as long as it wasn’t anything treasonous), not really caring if the person they were talking to was royalty or not. Kim had been in the Bourgeois Empire for so long that he had forgotten that not all servants were just suck-ups. In some ways, Adam wasn’t so bad after all.

But still. The guy had to be knocked down a peg.

“I challenge you to a sports match,” Kim said, folding his arms. “You get to decide which sport. I’m good at all of them.”

“Hmm… how about lacrosse?”

“La what?”

Adam chuckled. “Oh, so you don’t know what that even is? In that case, yeah. Lacrosse. You pick your team, I’ll pick mine. If I win, you have to give me that robe thing you’re wearing.”

“It’s called an áo dài, and there’s no way you’re gonna win anyway. If you lose then you have to… um…”

For once he couldn’t think of a consequence. The only thing coming to mind, surprisingly, was “if you lose then you have to kiss me” but he quickly squashed that thought. Why was he always such a hopeless romantic? It was stupid. And plus, this guy was annoying.

“If I lose I’ll wear a dunce hat for a week, is that good enough?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” Kim said. “That’s good.”

“Nice. Let me know when you’ve picked your team and we can decide when to have the match.”

“Oh, I can’t wait.”

Kim turned around and walked into the hall, leaving Adam behind him at the door. Lacrosse? Seriously, what was that?

Anyway, he could think about that later. For now he had to find his friends. That was going to be a difficult feat in a hall this size, with so many people everywhere in their fanciest clothing. No one at school had bothered dressing up so formally for the events, even for the autumn ball and spring dance. This was totally new.

He stopped dead when he saw Max standing in the middle of the hall with his family, greeting some other royal guests.

Max… okay wow. He looked good. He looked really, _really_ good. Those deep green robes…

Kim hadn’t even realized he had stopped breathing. Alright, so Max looked good. Of course he did. Kim already knew how cute Max was. He tried to shake himself out of it, only to see that Max had noticed him and was giving him a smile and a sneaky little wave. Kim waved back. More than anything he wanted to go and talk to Max, but it looked like Max was quite busy right now. Maybe a bit later.

He headed down the swirling staircase towards where the food tables were, hoping he would find someone else he knew. Nino and Alya had to be around here somewhere, right? And he also needed to find…

Oh, there she was! Pharaoh Alix, standing over by the drinks table with her pet snake wrapped around her sceptre, as usual, and her brother by her side. It looked like most of the surrounding people were too wary of the snake to come very close.

Kim was about to say hello when she noticed him first and said rather loudly, “Oh hey Emperor Palpatine, what’s up?”

“Be quiet!” he said, trying not to laugh. “If you call me that again I will pick you up and chuck you off the top of the staircase, okay?”

“Okay. So what’s the story behind that, huh?”

“Just some servant being really sassy.”

“Nice. Sassy servants are good. We’ve got none of those back home.”

“And a good thing too,” Jalil muttered. “I can’t imagine how much trouble you would get into otherwise…”

“Speaking of trouble,” Alix said, holding a tall juice glass out at Kim, “I’ve already had enough juice to be on a _massive_ sugar rush right now, so it’s your turn. Go on!”

Part of Kim’s brain was telling him not to, knowing that sugar rushes made him more impulsive than he usually was, but he ignored it and took the glass. “Thanks. Hey, what flavour is this juice?”

“Why don’t you taste it and find out? You’re not allergic to anything so I’m not gonna ruin the surprise…”

She was smirking. Why was she smirking? And Jalil too for some reason, even though usually he was such a sour grape. Oh well, whatever. Kim lifted the glass to his lips and took a sip…

_YUCK!_

He spat it straight back into the glass again, trying not to gag. This was not fruit juice, whatever it was! It was like bleach, mixed with ketchup, and poison, and spiders, and –!

“What the heck is this stuff?!” he managed to say, noticing that the other two had started laughing.

“A mix of pretty much everything,” Jalil said, shrugging, since Alix was too busy laughing to reply. “There’s mango juice, apple juice, orange juice, a _lot_ of salt and pepper, and also sugar, and we put some of the garlic dip in it too–”

“You tricked me?!”

“We’re always doing this at formal events. It’s the only way to have a little fun here without causing an international incident. Though I suppose it possibly could cause an international incident if we did this to someone who doesn’t have a sense of humour.”

“Oh, you mean like you?” Kim snapped.

“I know you think I’m a stick-in-the-mud, but why would I play a practical joke on you if I didn’t think it was absolutely hilarious?”

Really? So when Jalil wasn’t busy insulting Kim to the moon and back, he found it funny to play jokes on him? Alright, he had a sense of humour. Just a _bad_ one.

“Now I can see how you’re related to Alix,” he said, putting the drink back down on the table. He was very tempted to just throw it right at Jalil’s face but that probably really would cause an international incident, which would not be a good idea.

“See?” Alix said, finally having got her laughter under control. “I told you he’s a troublemaker too. Anyway, you would totally have helped me pull the same kind of prank on someone, wouldn’t you? It was pretty funny, you have to admit…”

Well okay – it was kind of funny. It was just annoying that Jalil, of all people, had to be in on it. In that case there was only one thing for it.

“Jalil, you’re going to help me pull a prank on someone,” he said.

Jalil looked unamused. “Am I?”

“Yes. There’s this really annoying servant guy who I need to get back at for something–”

“The Emperor Palpatine thing?”

Kim rolled his eyes. “Yes, that. Anyway, I challenged the guy to a lacrosse match but I don’t actually know what lacrosse is. You’re gonna help me think of a way to win the match and also make a fool out of him.”

“Can I help with this?” Alix asked.

“Sure. But mostly I want Jalil to help so that he stops making fun of me and starts making fun of other people for a change.”

Jalil sighed. “Fine, I suppose I could lend a hand in your childish pranks…”

“Good.”

Alix lowered her voice suddenly. “Hey Kim! Psst! Max is over there!”

Kim glanced over his shoulder to see that Max was indeed greeting some guests not too far away. His heart skipped a beat. Max just looked so good! Kim had never really thought about how Max looked before, but there was no denying it now. He looked good. Was that just because Kim was already in love with him or was Max actually that gorgeous? He couldn’t even tell.

“You should ask him to dance,” Alix continued, poking Kim’s arm with her sceptre.

“I agree that it would be a good idea,” Jalil added. “Not that I care.”

Kim just looked between the two of them, with their encouraging expressions that didn’t fully understand anything. “I can’t do that.”

“Yes you can!” Alix said. “You’re Prince Kim, you can do anything!”

“Well yeah, I’m not _scared_ , of course not, just…”

“It won’t be weird. People in this kingdom don’t care if a guy dances with a guy. Heck, most countries in the International Alliance don’t care. It’ll be fine.”

That was a little more reassuring. But not enough.

“I don’t even know how to do any of the royal posh formal dances.”

“Just hold his hands and step forwards and backwards a bit, how hard can it be?”

“I don’t know, I…”

“Kim.” Alix grabbed the front of his áo dài and pulled him down to her level. “Do you want to dance with Max or not?”

“Yes!”

“Then I _dare_ you to do it.”

Drat. She knew exactly what she was doing, didn’t she? Her pet snake was hissing in a way that sounded almost like taunting. If there was one thing Alix knew, it was that Kim could not turn down a dare.

“Alright, fine!” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “I will definitely do it. And I’m definitely not scared, so don’t get the wrong idea.”

“That’s the spirit! Go for it!”

Kim turned around and marched off, trying to ignore how much adrenaline was hitting him all of a sudden.

This wouldn’t be weird, right? It would be fine. Max wouldn’t be weirded out. It was just a dance. No need to make it a big deal.

But then again… what if Kim wanted it to be a big deal? It wasn’t like he hadn’t already been imagining dancing with Max, imagining some stupid sappy outcome where they declared their love for each other…

Actually maybe it was a bad idea to think about that right now.

“Kim!” Max had finished speaking to the guests and was now rushing over as quickly as he could. “It’s good to see you, Emperor Palpatine!”

“Not you too,” Kim muttered, though he couldn’t hide a smile.

“Anyway, you look fantastic – not that it’s unusual for you, of course, and you know it.”

Was he blushing? He already knew that compliments from Max made him blush. He just ran a hand through his hair and said, “You look great too. I mean yeah, you always do… I mean…”

Max was looking up at him expectantly. What was Kim supposed to ask him again? It was hard to think when all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around Max and squeeze him so tight, like he was the last person left in the world.

Alix’s words of encouragement came back to him. _You’re Prince Kim, you can do anything!_ Huh, that was pretty nice of her to say. And she was right, wasn’t she? Kim could do anything!

“Max, would you like to dance with me?”

Oh great, he had actually said it now. There was no backing out. Hopefully Max wouldn’t flip out and realize that Kim liked him and be annoyed about it or–

“Kim, I would love to!”

It took a few seconds to register. Max was smiling at him, nothing having gone wrong at all. Thank goodness.

“Cool! Uh, I have no idea what I’m doing though, so hopefully this isn’t gonna be a disaster…”

Not exactly knowing how he should go about this, he just grabbed Max’s hand and pulled him over to the area that had been designated as the place to dance. The music was fairly slow and dreary, just like it had been at the spring dance at school, but still. A dance with Max was better than no dance at all, right?

“I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing either, so I presume we should just copy everyone else,” Max said, turning around to face Kim, before holding his hand a little tighter and putting his other hand on his shoulder. “I think it’s something like this.”

Kim just nodded, trying not to freak out. He had hugged Max plenty of times before, even picked him up, but being close to him… it never felt like _this_. Something was different. In a good way.

Thank goodness the music was slow. Kim was sure he would have tripped over his own feet otherwise, and Max might have done the same. Neither of them had any clue how to ballroom dance. Kim could feel the rather judgmental eyes of the other royalty guests pressing into him, making him even more nervous. Fine, he was bad at formal dancing! Was that really such a crime?

He didn’t know how long it was until he felt a buzzing in his pocket. Oh, that must be his new phone!

“I have a message!” he said to Max, probably sounding far too excited for something that this kingdom would consider fairly mundane.

“It must be from Alix, since I clearly haven’t been messaging you in the past few minutes,” Max said.

“Yeah, you’re probably right…” Kim rather reluctantly let go of Max and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He looked at the message for a split second before blushing and quickly putting it back in his pocket.

“What was it?” Max asked.

“Oh, just her and Jalil bragging about like… pulling some pranks…”

That was a lie. Max had been right about one thing, though – the message was indeed from Alix.

_Hey Kim, there’s no way you can make a move with all these boring royal people watching you. Why don’t you take Max out into the palace gardens with you and then tell him how much you love him?_

It certainly was nice that she was trying to be a helpful winggirl. But still! Kim had already decided that he would confess to Max on the day of the Cupid Festival, not today!

Well, surely taking Max out into the gardens couldn’t hurt. It would be more fun than dancing anyway.

“Hey Max?” Kim took Max’s hand again, feeling flustered. “It’s kinda hot in here with a million people, and noisy too, and boring… should we go in the gardens or something?”

Max looked surprised for a few seconds and didn’t say anything. Then he shook himself out of it and said, “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

“Awesome!”

Kim pulled Max along towards the doors that led outside. He couldn’t help thinking about Max’s pause just now – what did it mean? He already suspected that Max might like him back, but it seemed like an idea too good to be true. He didn’t want to read too much into everything. Maybe Max was just… tired? He’d been greeting guests all evening, he must be.

The gardens were beautiful at this time of night. They stretched off far into the distance, with all kinds of different flowers growing in each little patch between the walkways. A large marble terrace was overlooking the entire thing. Kim and Max sat down on one of the benches on the terrace, a perfect view of the gardens in front of them.

“These gardens kind of remind me of the ones at school,” Kim said, being the first one to break the cool silence between them. “Now if only there was a thinking fountain like our one.”

“There are indeed fountains here, though none will ever be as special as the thinking fountain.”

That was just so sweet! How was Max so sweet? Kim took a deep breath and said, “You know, the moon looks so big tonight…”

“Well yes. It’s a full moon.”

“And like, it looks different here.” He wasn’t lying – it was true. He stared up at the moon, trying to figure out what it was. “It looks different at school too. Back at home it was always the right way up, but everywhere I go it seems to change angle.”

“That’s because you’re viewing the moon at different latitudes. Right now we’re further north than your kingdom, and the school is further north still. It makes the moon look somewhat tilted. And if you saw it from the southern hemisphere, it would look upside-down.”

Wow. Max knew so many things. Kim tried not to stare, he really did. But seeing Max talk was just so mesmerizing somehow. Had it always been like this? Kim remembered always having liked listening to Max nerd out, even if he didn’t understand it all. Now it was making his heart beat much faster in his chest, his palms sweaty, his thoughts racing…

“Max, you’re so cool,” he managed to say, hoping he didn’t sound too lovestruck. “I mean not just ‘cause you’re so smart but in general, you’re just–”

“Shhhh. You’re too nice about me all the time.”

“But that’s because it’s true!”

Max grinned, somewhat nervously. “You’re always gushing about me. Now it’s my turn to gush about you.”

“Aw Max, you don’t have to–”

“Shush!” Max swung his legs up on the bench and turned to face Kim. “You are, quite honestly, one of the most inspirational people I know in my life. The motivation, the energy, everything! You have all the confidence I could never muster myself. And… you’re always so nice to me. Always supporting me, telling me how much you care about me, all that. I don’t think you know how much your encouragement really means to me.”

Kim could barely move, he was so overwhelmed by Max’s kind words. “Th-thank you…”

“Well thank _you!_ ” Max was on a roll now. “Most people only care about how smart I am, or they just assume that because I’m a nerd I’m probably fairly emotionless. But you never did that. You’ve always been there for me and your constant emotional support is something that always keeps me going. I know you feel like you don’t do enough for me, but trust me. You do more than enough. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kim.”

“Oh… M-Max…”

Kim wouldn’t be surprised if he had a heart attack and died on the spot. It was a combination of everything – Max telling him how much he cared about him, the beautiful atmosphere the moonlight created, the exquisite gardens, the peace of it all…

His phone buzzed again. He snapped himself out of whatever stupor he had been in and had a quick look at it while Max just smiled and started looking back up at the moon. It was another message from Alix.

_Have you kissed him yet??? If not then get a move on!!!_

What?! Kiss Max??? He couldn’t just do that!! Max didn’t even know that Kim liked him yet!!!

Well… there was always that high possibility that Max liked him back, right? And Max was just so… so cute… and maybe… kissing him… might be nice…

Kim could feel himself blushing. Yeah, fine, okay. He wanted to kiss Max. That made sense, right? Not only was he in love with Max, but he also knew thanks to the winter party that kissing was fun. And he hadn’t ever had a proper kiss, had he? Well he _had_ , but not like this. The one with Adrien was too quick to remember, same with that platonic one from Alix, and whatever nonsense that had gone on at the winter party had been so superficial and didn’t feel like anything special, so maybe now… with Max… it might be better…

Without thinking he put his arm around Max’s waist and pulled him closer. A second later his brain finally kicked into action and he chickened out, looking back up at the moon and trying not to act as flustered as he felt.

“Your constant hugs are also much appreciated,” Max said, “so if that was you hinting at wanting another one then sure!”

With that, Max put his arms around Kim’s shoulders and hugged him. Of course it wasn’t the first time he had done that, far from it. So why did things feel so new?

When Max pulled away he didn’t quite let go, instead just sitting there rather close to Kim with his arms still around him. When he spoke his voice was a lot quieter. “I’ve always been surprised at how well the two of us get along, considering how different we are, but it’s like you said once – it’s a good balance, isn’t it? And… I’ve never had anyone I was so close to before…”

Did he mean that literally? Because they certainly were very close, there was such little distance between them. And why was Max still holding onto him like that? Could that be considered as friendship?

Kim knew he should say something, confess his feelings, anything! But he just couldn’t bring himself to. Not right now. Not when everything felt so beautiful. He didn’t want to be rejected on a night like this, even if that rejection was unlikely.

But this night shouldn’t go to waste either. Especially not when Max was being so overly kind and sweet, and Kim just didn’t know what to do with himself. Should he kiss Max? Should he not do it? If he did, that would make it clear how he felt. But he couldn’t just _kiss_ someone like that! There wasn’t even mistletoe or anything – what excuse would he have? And what if Max didn’t like him back? In that case kissing him would be a very bad idea indeed!

Not knowing what to do, Kim just settled for pulling Max a little closer, feeling another rush of adrenaline. He tried to suppress it – maybe thinking about something boring like schoolwork would help – but it wasn’t working. Being this close to Max was overwhelming him.

Was there any point in fighting it? No, there wasn’t! Forget boring schoolwork. Kim wouldn’t be able to focus on anything but Max anyway. He let his thoughts run, his feelings flow – it was all Max! He couldn’t think about anything else, didn’t _want_ to think about anything else. He was in love. So, very, in love. There was no denying it now.

Max seemed a little startled for a few seconds, but then he just looked up at Kim with such a warm, starry expression, it rivalled all the stars in the night sky. Surely that kind of expression wasn’t platonic, was it? Of course it was possible to platonically care about someone this much. Alix existed, after all. But this expression…

Kim took a deep breath to calm his nerves, then pulled Max even closer, so close their foreheads were almost touching, so close they were sharing breaths, so close that it didn’t even feel unnatural when Kim gently laid a hand on the side of Max’s face.

Could this still be platonic? Who even knew. It was so overwhelming that Kim barely trusted himself to move a muscle now. He was so dizzy, so lovesick – had he ever felt this way before in his life? Had he ever felt this _good_ before in his life?

He could have stayed there forever, had Max not awkwardly pulled away and said, “I just realized I still have some guests to greet and I’d better get round to it and–”

He ran off without even saying anything else. Kim simply sat still for the next several minutes, feeling something shattering inside his chest. Oh, he’d been heartbroken before. The problem was that this didn’t really count as heartbreak, did it? He just couldn’t help wishing that Max hadn’t run away – why had he done that? Was he weirded out? Had Kim messed up?

He was surprised to feel his eyes burning with tears. No – he couldn’t cry! Not over something as stupid as Max needing to suddenly go back inside to do his royal duties. It shouldn’t be a big deal. They just hugged, that was all. And he hadn’t been planning to tell Max his true feelings until the Cupid Festival anyway. None of this should be affecting him at all.

Then why were the tears starting to roll down his cheeks? He wiped them away furiously. _No crying!_ He never used to cry very much, it was only after starting at this school that his emotions would get the better of him like this. But he wouldn’t let them! No crying, no tears, no silliness. It wasn’t a big deal. He just had to keep telling himself that.

Oh… what was the use? No one else was out here anyway, there was no one to see him cry. He just put his head in his hands and let the waterworks continue. It wasn’t just Max that he was crying over – it was everything. The pressure of being royalty, the looming war that seemed inevitable, the fact that he would be crowned king in a year and a half, feeling so inadequate and wondering whether he would ever be able to live up to expectations, and how would he be able to be with a _boy_ anyway even if Max loved him back, and _why did Max just run away like that–_

“Uh, Kim? Do you want me to like… stay here for support? Or do you want to be left alone for a while?”

Kim didn’t need to remove his face from his hands to recognize the voice of Pharaoh Alix.

“Is Jalil with you?” he asked, his voice sounding muffled through his hands.

“Nope. Just me.”

Oh thank goodness, that was okay. He would be grateful for the support of his best friend as long as her annoying, snarky brother wasn’t around to ruin things.

“G-good. Then you can s-stay here.”

“Okay. But for the record I have no idea how to comfort people who are upset so uh… let me know if I do something stupid.”

Doing something stupid? That was a _Kim_ thing to do. Like crying over the fact that Max had just left, even though it didn’t matter, and of _course_ Max left, he was royalty and he had a job to do.

“I didn’t k-kiss him, by the way,” Kim said, his tears finally starting to subside enough that he could put his hands down again.

“Yeah. I guessed.” Alix sat down beside him. “I don’t think you’d be crying otherwise. You’d be in that hall bragging to everyone about having a new sweetheart who’s smarter than anyone else.”

Kim couldn’t help but giggle a little. That was exactly the kind of thing he would have done. “I didn’t mean to cry. I’m just…”

“You’re just a hopeless romantic who has a lot of strong emotions, that’s all. That’s not a bad thing, you know. In fact,” she muttered, sounding a little wistful, “sometimes I wish I could know what that’s like.”

“Having crushes on people is overrated. Trust me.”

“Oh good, so I’m not missing anything.”

“Definitely not.”

“Still.” She looked more serious now. “I think you should tell Max how you feel.”

“I told you, I’m gonna do it during the Cupid Festival.”

“Fine, if that’ll make you feel better. But trust me. You should definitely do it.”

Kim sighed. “How do you know it’ll all work out?”

“It can’t go any worse than the mess of the other timelines, I can tell you that. And I just have a good feeling about you and Max. Like, a really, _really_ good feeling.”

“Do you think he likes me back?”

She hesitated for a few seconds before answering, “Do _you_ think so?”

“I don’t know! He seemed like he was being romantic with me just now, but then… he just left…”

Kim could feel the tears coming back so he just stopped talking. Alix gave his arm a gentle punch.

“He cares about you, don’t worry. I’m sure you didn’t scare him off. He’s just got a lot of boring royal stuff to get back to. Peace Balls are always a lot of work, especially if you’re the country hosting it, trust me.”

“Yeah… you’re right…”

“Anyway, maybe you should get your mind off Max for a while. Do you want me to tell you about lacrosse so that this match with the servant won’t be a total loss?”

Kim nodded. “Yes please.”

“Alright, well, it’s this sport that’s usually played in stuffy boarding schools in Anglia, with these stick things which kind of have nets on them – well I’m not explaining this very well but you’ll see what I mean – and there’s two teams of people…”

She wasn’t very good at explaining, but he was grateful anyway for keeping his mind away from things that were painful to think about. Lacrosse sounded weird. He was starting to regret challenging Adam about it earlier. Why did he always do things like that? He was probably going to lose!

“Do you want me to be on your lacrosse team?” Alix asked.

Wait – this was good! This was very good! She actually knew what lacrosse was and much like Kim, she was fairly good at sporty things in general. Maybe with her on the team, they could actually win!

“Oh yes, you are _definitely_ on my team,” he said. “I can’t have a team without my super cool best friend on it, can I?”

She grinned and punched his arm again. “Good, ‘cause if you didn’t let me on your team then I’d trick you into having one of those gross mixed up drinks again.”

He ruffled the bit of hair that was sticking out from under her headdress. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“Anyway,” she said, her grin turning rather more evil now, “have you got socks on? Because this marble terrace seems like it would be great for _sock-sliding_ on, y’know… and that way we won’t have to go back inside to the boringness…”

Oh, that sounded like so much fun! It was weird how quickly Kim’s mood was changing to something much more positive. How was that happening? The “power of friendship” …?

Nah, that was way too cheesy, such a magical power surely didn’t exist, even if friendship was pretty awesome…

Whatever. He took his shoes off and then stood up, socks on and ready to go. “Heck yeah, let’s go sock-sliding!”

“Nice!”

This was going to be great. And hopefully it would keep his mind off Max until he could sort out his emotions…


	38. The woes of being a wing-girl

Fu had been right about ignorance being bliss. He had been absolutely, completely, right. The other timelines were just creepy at this point. Mostly Alix tried just to not think about them at all, which worked fairly well – while awake, at least. Being asleep was something else entirely.

Waking up the next morning, her most recent dream just kept replaying itself over and over in her head. It had been from that timeline where she was still under house arrest, having been kept alone for months on end at this point. Well… no wonder it was so haunting…

No. She had to get her mind off it somehow. Why not reread that science journal, for about the fifth time? That always cheered her up. Max had handed it to her the other day and told her she might find something of interest on page 27. Sure enough, she did.

He had been right about the word “aromantic”. And that wasn’t all! There was “asexuality” too! Things were finally making sense. Okay, so she didn’t actually understand most of the article (or most of the journal in general) since it was written in such scientific language, but she got the gist of it. And the gist was that there was nothing wrong with her after all. People like her were totally normal.

Her initial reaction might have been a bit overly enthusiastic, now that she thought about it. She had clung onto Jalil’s shin like a koala, refusing to let go, telling him excitedly about everything she’d just read. Okay, that had probably been pretty annoying for him. Whoops.

Well never mind. Alix took the journal in one hand, took a “scientific dictionary of terms” off the nearby bookshelf with another hand, then sat on an armchair ready to go through the article properly and understand what it meant, like a good, diligent student. Even if she still didn’t understand things she could always ask Max. The next few weeks had International Alliance peace conferences going on, which gave her an excuse to stay in this kingdom for almost the entire remaining holidays, so she would have plenty of time.

“Good morning o sister of mine, what are you doing?”

Huh, was Jalil really up this early? He was a uni student and usually seemed to be allergic to mornings or daytime.

“I’m studying,” Alix replied.

“In the holidays, really? What are you studying?”

“Science.”

“Wow, I can’t believe it! My precious little sister _does_ actually take after me! I’m so proud, honestly, you’re going to be a great scholar someday!”

Alix just ignored him and tried to concentrate. She was used to filtering out distractions while working, considering that she always had to deal with Kim at school. Though, to be fair, she was usually the one doing the distracting.

“Aww, look at you, my adorable small sister, just sitting there reading…”

Yeah, that was very distracting. Alix just carried on trying to ignore him. Maybe he was doing it on purpose to get back at her for all the times she had distracted him from his own work. In any case, she recognized that tone of voice. It was the “I’m about to start squishing your adorable chubby little cheeks!” tone of voice. Apparently it was a common thing for older siblings to do. Alya had once mentioned that she did it to her own little sisters.

Of course, the difference was that Alya’s sisters were _little kids_. Alix was 17! She didn’t usually mind unless Jalil was doing it in front of people, but still… would this still be going when she was 100? Wasn’t this totally stupid and pointless? Why were older siblings like this?

Sure enough, he did indeed start poking her in the cheek and muttering about how tiny and adorable she was, as always. Hopefully he’d get bored and stop in a minute.

“No reaction,” he said, in a suddenly monotone voice. It was so unexpected that Alix couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Aha, a reaction!”

“Oh, forget it,” Alix said, snapping the journal shut. “There’s no way I can study with you around. I’m off.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m gonna go talk to Max.”

“Good for you, he can help you on your path to wisdom and knowledge! And speaking of Max, what happened with him and Kim last night?”

“That’s none of your business, ask them yourself.”

“What? No, I’m not talking to either of those children for any longer than I have to, thank you very much.”

There, snarky Jalil was back. Alix just grinned and walked out of the room, picking her snake up from the back of a nearby chair as she went. As soon as she opened the door the servant standing outside hastily jumped backwards, trying to look casual. He’d probably been listening in. Whatever, it wasn’t like she had said anything that wasn’t supposed to be heard.

Wait a second… this servant. This was the one who had been introducing everyone to the Peace Ball last night. That meant that this was the Emperor Palpatine servant. The one who Kim had challenged to a lacrosse match, for some insane reason.

“You’re Emperor Palpatine’s nemesis, right?” she asked him.

“Yep, that’s me,” the guy replied. “Uh, Your Majesty.” He ran a hand through his hair and gave a rather cocky grin.

Hmm. Kim was right, this guy really did need to be knocked down a peg. Alix thought back to the dream she’d had last night – less of a dream, more just watching the events of other timelines while asleep. The real reason why the “house arrest timeline” was so creepy was not because of the thought of house arrest anymore. It was because of what house arrest had done to her in that timeline. Cold, cynical, cruel, intimidating… that was who she had become. It wasn’t a good thing.

But then again, if she could do it in other timelines, then she could channel it into herself here too, right? Just like when she had scared those guards away from kidnapping Adrien?

She put on her coldest voice and expression and said, “You’re going to lose that lacrosse match, by the way.” The snake hissed a little, adding to the effect.

The servant looked taken aback for a few seconds, but quickly recovered. “But if you use your royal powers or your snake to force me into losing then that’s cheating and it doesn’t count.”

Okay, maybe he was right. “Fine then,” she said. “I won’t ‘scare you into losing’ or anything. But just know that I could if I wanted to. And you’re still going to lose.”

“We’ll see about that, _Your Majesty_.”

Oh, an annoying servant. That was so much more interesting! Why couldn’t the servants back home be like this? Things would be much more fun.

“Yeah, we’ll see. Bye for now.”

As she walked away she could see the servant bowing rather overdramatically out of the corner of her eye. No wonder Kim had challenged that guy to something within a few minutes of meeting him. He seemed like the kind of person who would clash with Kim a lot. But maybe they’d end up making friends. After all, Alix herself had clashed with Kim a lot at first, hadn’t she…?

 

Max was already awake when she arrived, as predicted.

“Oh good morning Alix, what’s up?”

“What happened between you and Kim last night?” she asked immediately. Of course she already knew what had happened since Kim had told her, but she needed to hear it from Max’s side too. Surely those two idiots must be on the verge of getting together. _Surely._

Max sighed, his smile dropping. “A lot.”

Alix sat down beside him. “Okay. Elaborate.”

“Well, he asked me for a dance. Then we went outside in the gardens for a while. And he has a habit of being extremely supportive of me, so I felt like it was time to return the favour. I said a lot of very nice things to him indeed. Then I hugged him. For quite a long time. And then…” He put his head in his hands.

“Then what? Did you kiss him?” Of course she knew they hadn’t kissed, that was practically the first thing Kim had told her.

“No! I mean, I was thinking about it! I was going to. I wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I can’t do that when Kim doesn’t love me back like that!”

God, this was the most frustrating thing ever. She just wanted to grab Max by the ear and yell _Of course Kim loves you back like that!!! He’s head over heels for you!!! How are you not seeing this!!! I’m aromantic and asexual and even I can tell!!!!!!!! Just ask him out already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

But she had been sworn to secrecy by both of them. Life could never just be simple, could it? She’d just have to get them together the long way around.

“So then what did you do?” she asked, trying not to sound like she was as impatient as she felt.

Max shrugged. “I just left. It probably seemed rather sudden.”

Yeah, it was rather sudden. Sudden enough to push Kim to tears, anyway.

“What makes you think Kim doesn’t love you back?” Alix asked. “I mean, you said he’s always really nice and supportive to you and stuff. More than usual lately. Surely that means he likes you, right?”

“Not necessarily. Kim has _always_ been very kind and supportive to me and it never meant anything romantic. The fact that his behaviours have increased recently is probably due to the fact that he’s been under comparatively more stress these past several months, what with the flu and the news from home. Logically speaking, his feelings for me are almost certainly solely platonic.”

Well logically speaking, Max was dead wrong! Alix resisted the urge to throttle him and said, “Are you sure though? Like, are you really, really sure?”

“Yes. Look, I have thought about it properly, I promise. Kim has always been attracted to people who are considered conventionally hot, not nerds like me.”

“Seriously?! I’m not conventional!”

“But you are considered ‘hot’. Trust me, from my objective, gay point of view, I can tell.”

What? This just wouldn’t do. Max was cute-looking too, of course he was!

“I’ll have you know,” Alix said, “that from my even more objective, aromantic asexual point of view, every single kid in our class is ‘hot’, including you, so stop being so pessimistic and just go court the hell out of Kim already!”

Max smiled a little. “Sounds like you read the science journal, huh?”

“I know you’re trying to change the subject on purpose but yeah, I did. Thank you for that.”

“No problem. I’m glad it was useful for you.”

“Oh, definitely. I’m kinda wishing my other timeline selves had read it before they…”

“Before what?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “Don’t worry.”

“How are the other timelines anyway? Anyone else dead yet?”

“No, unless you count on the inside. Last night instead of a dream I was just seeing what was going on in the timeline where I’m under house arrest, and it was… uh… pretty creepy.”

Max was smiling even more now. “Really? I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.”

“Of course I’m not!” she lied. “It’s just that like… that house arrest version of me, she’s… well, I don’t know how much I blame her, since she’s been kept in isolation for so long, it must be driving her nuts. But basically what happened is Kim was allowed to visit her for a little bit the other day, since they’re betrothed or whatever, and yeah. He’s definitely afraid of her.”

“To be fair, it doesn’t take much to be afraid of you.”

“I know, but someone who was once her best friend? She told him that as soon as she’s queen of his country, she’s gonna rule with an iron fist and make sure she always gets her way, since she can’t do that right now and it’s killing her. She’s basically being forced to abdicate and leave the throne to her dad with no choice and she wants revenge. She’s going to use forces from Kim’s kingdom to provide arms for Jalil so he can start a rebellion and take over. Or something like that.”

Max frowned. “Alright, I see why you said it was creepy.”

“Exactly. And now Kim’s scared of her, and she’ll use that to get him to allow her to do anything she wants.”

That wasn’t even the half of it. Since she was still sworn to secrecy she didn’t dare mention the next bit of what happened, but it was still chilling all the same…

_“Alix, I think I should probably tell you that I’m in love with Max, don’t be mad…”_

_“I don’t mind. You can always just divorce me, abdicate, leave your kingdom to me, then go marry him.”_

_“What? But I don’t want to give up my kingdom!”_

_“You don’t have a choice about it. I’m being made to marry you, right? It doesn’t matter whether you ever abdicate or not. You may be the king but I will be the one in charge, **whether you like it or not.** ”_

Wow. She really didn’t like the thought of Kim being afraid of her. If house arrest had been bad enough that it would turn her into someone like that, well… thank goodness she had saved Adrien from that kind of fate.

“I wish I could talk to her,” she said finally. “I don’t know what I’d say, but maybe it would help.”

“It seems like having timeline powers is rather bittersweet in a way,” Max said.

“Yep. Emphasis on the _bitter_.”

“There must be good things about it too!”

“Other than learning from some stupid mistakes, there’s nothing good.”

“But surely there must–”

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Max called. The door opened and in walked Kim, looking a little nervous.

“Hey guys,” he said. “Wait, Alix, you’re awake already?”

“Jeez, I don’t usually wake up that late, do I?” she said.

“Yeah, you do… anyway, um, Max? I need to ask you something…”

Aha! He was going to ask Max out, finally! Alix tried to stop herself grinning. Should she leave? No, it would be weird if she just suddenly left, wouldn’t it… but she couldn’t just stay here when Kim and Max were having a _moment_ , could she? Oh whatever, if Kim wanted her to leave then he’d just tell her to leave. She had to stay and see this for herself.

Kim cleared his throat and then said, “Max, will you join my lacrosse team?”

What?! _Lacrosse?!_

“I have no idea what this is about but I would love to,” Max replied.

“That’s great. Thanks. I’ll see you later, I’m gonna go ask Alya and Nino now.”

“Alright, see you.”

Kim turned and walked out of the room again. Max just sighed and put his face in his hands again. Alix was rather close to going and finding a lacrosse stick to whack them both over the head with. Was it really so hard for people to just tell each other that they were in love?! Kim had told her, he had told Chloé, he’d told Adrien, presumably Max must have confessed to some people in his lifetime at some point…

Or had he?

“Max, how long did you say you’ve been in love with Kim?”

“A few years now. It was rather hard to notice at first so I’m not sure exactly.”

Years? Already? And he had never done anything about it at all?

“I don’t get it,” she said. “Just during the time we’ve been at this school Kim’s already had crushes on like five different people. Have you really only had one? Or did you like other people in between?”

“A few other weak ones in between, I suppose. It’s different for everyone. Kim’s a hopeless romantic who tends to fall for people rather often. Most people aren’t quite as dramatic as him when it comes to love.”

Right. That made sense. And maybe this could be put to good use.

“You’ve gotta be dramatic too, Max!” She poked him in the arm. “If you want him to love you, pull out all the stops. Show up at his window with a guitar and serenade him. Take him to the fanciest restaurant you can think of. Put a rose between your teeth and flirt with him so hard he has to take the hint. Make him _swoon!”_

Max was looking rather embarrassed. “Neither you, Chloé nor Adrien had to do any of that.”

“Max. Listen. _Stop being so logical all the time._ Just trust me. He loves cheesy romantic stuff, okay? Go dance with him in the rain, kiss him under the mistletoe, something!”

“How about play I lacrosse with him?”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s a start, I guess. But don’t forget that Kim isn’t a slow mover. Like, trust me on this. Seriously, really, trust me.”

“Maybe I’ll do something on the Cupid Festival day.”

“Good. He’d love that.”

Max smiled. “I’m so glad I told you I like Kim. It’s nice to be able to finally talk to someone about it, someone who’s willing to help me. Thank you, Alix.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. You’re my best friend, of course I’ll help you.”

“And for the record, please don’t think that I’m closer with Kim than I am with you. You mean a lot to me too, of course.” He ruffled her hair.

“Pfff, you’re in a sappy mood, aren’t you? But like… you mean a lot to me as well. So there.”

He just chuckled and pulled her into a long hug. Max wasn’t the type of person who hugged people very often – or rather, he only really tended to hug Kim – so it felt unusual. But good, too.

Finally he let go and said, “By the way, what exactly is all this about a lacrosse team?”

“Oh that!” Alix laughed. “I’m not sure of the full story, but it’s something to do with the servant who called Kim Emperor Palpatine last night.”

“Really?”

There was another knock on the door. Alix jumped up and opened it to see that Kim was there again, this time with Alya and Nino too, and they were all carrying lacrosse sticks. Upside-down.

“Lacrosse practice session time!” Kim said. “Come on you guys, there’s no time to waste!”

“What, right now?”

“Yeah, right now! We have to get to the pitch before Adam’s team does so we can practise!”

“But we’re royals, we can just order him to leave–”

“Shush! Let’s get going! Last one there has to be the goalie!”

Without waiting, Kim ran off back down the corridor. Alya and Nino exchanged an amused glance before running after him.

“So,” Alix said, turning to Max. “You ready for some lacrosse?”

“Yeah,” Max replied, standing up. “I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized I'm aro ace too, Alix :')


	39. Conferences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters seem to be increasing in length...

Kim couldn’t help but be frustrated that he wasn’t good at lacrosse from the beginning. Of course he knew that all sports took practice and effort to get good at, but still! He was supposed to be sporty! That was what he was known for! But when he dropped the ball for about the twentieth time, hearing the servants on the sidelines of the pitch giggling at his incompetence, it was the worst feeling in the world.

“This game sucks!” He threw his lacrosse stick on the ground and crossed his arms.

“More like our team sucks,” Alya added, which didn’t make him feel much better.

“It’s okay guys, we can do it!” Nino called from the other end of the pitch. “Look at the crowd that’s here supporting us!”

Said “crowd” was a group of very unimpressed servants who had gathered to watch, finding this ridiculousness much more entertaining than their daily chores. Nino waved at them and they waved back, giggling some more.

“We’re gonna lose,” Kim muttered, kicking the lacrosse stick further away from him. Then he heard a voice that made him freeze up.

“That’s right, you certainly are!”

He turned to see that Adam was walking onto the pitch with a lacrosse stick in hand, a team of other equipment-wielding servants following him, brandishing their sticks like weapons.

Oh great… there was no way he could let Adam see their practice session. He would know they sucked.

“Why did you pick lacrosse in the first place?” Kim asked him.

“Oh, it’s simple,” Adam drawled. “I’m good at lacrosse. You’re not. And I want to win. How amazing would it feel to have beaten the infamous _Prince Kim_ at one of his own challenges?”

Kim clenched his fists, very much wanting to grab the lacrosse stick out of Adam’s hand and hit him with it. “Well you’re not going to win, so there. My lacrosse team is amazing.”

“Ah yes. One over-competitive prince, a nerd for a goalie, some princess with fluffy hair that’s going to get in the way, a prince who’s too overenthusiastic for his own good, and a pharaoh who’s violent enough to turn the match into a brawl. Oh yes, and that snake. _Wonderful_ choice of teammates, Emperor Palpatine.”

How could this servant be so open in dismissing royalty? Most servants didn’t even dare, usually just cowering away behind graces and manners. And even the ones who did speak their mind were at least respectful about it. Adam was something else entirely. Kim was surprised to find himself fighting off a smile.

He picked his lacrosse stick up off the floor and dusted it off. “Don’t underestimate my teammates. They’re amazing.”

“At ruling countries, maybe. Or maybe not. The pharaoh’s brother is running around in a rage because his little sister – quite literally little, judging by her height – is going to be late for today’s peace conference, which she seems to have forgotten about. So perhaps not as good at ruling countries as they seem.”

“That was TODAY?!” he heard Alix call from the other side of the pitch. “No no no no no I can’t be late! I’ll be in so much trouble – oh come on Max, let’s get going – sorry Kim, we’ll be back later–”

“What? I’m not going!” Max’s voice sounded muffled through his protective goalie gear.

“Why not? Aren’t you the crown prince of this kingdom?”

“Well yes, but I’m not a reigning monarch yet. I don’t have to be there and for now I would prefer not to be. Lacrosse sounds more fun, no offence.”

“What?! You _like_ this kind of monarchy stuff though! I’m not going on my own, it’s gonna be so boring!”

“I can’t go,” Alya said, shrugging. “My country isn’t in the International Alliance.”

“I can’t either, not a reigning monarch,” Nino said. “Sorry dude.”

Alix turned to Kim. “Yo. I know you’re not a reigning monarch, you’re not even in the International Alliance, whatever. But you’re technically a refugee, right? You need all the support and alliances you can get. So if you come to this peace conference and tell everyone what’s happening, they might be more inclined to help your kingdom if war does break out…”

She hadn’t even needed to persuade him, really. He just wanted to get away from Adam for at least a little while. Even death would be preferable to letting that guy see his atrocious lacrosse skills. And plus, beneath it all, he really _was_ worried about his kingdom. War with Agreste was seeming more and more inevitable, and as the future monarch, he felt like he ought to start pulling his weight and actually doing something about it. Not just challenging people to silly sports matches or moping over some guy he had a crush on.

“Sure, I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Yay! Thanks! Now come on, let’s hurry before we’re late and I get told off by the king of Ceylon or something…”

As they ran off Kim could hear Adam calling after him, “Very wise of you, Emperor Palpatine of Narnia! Run while you can!”

Ugh. That guy, honestly.

 

They made it to the base of the Peace Tower with just enough time to spare, luckily. Unluckily, the peace conference was being held in the hall right at the top of it, with a large spiral staircase being the most efficient way of getting up there.

“Stairs are fine when there’s not _this_ many,” Alix sighed, looking up at them.

“Why don’t we take the lift?” Kim asked, pointing at the lift doors in the central column.

“That rickety old thing? It’s awful. The last time I was in there it stopped working halfway through, and me and Max were stuck in there for two hours. I ended up breaking my wrist because I was doing handstands out of boredom.”

“But I’ve never been in a lift before, we don’t have those in my kingdom! Please?”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Being stuck in a lift with nothing to do is even worse than being stuck in a peace conference.”

They entered the lift. Kim had only read about these, or seen them from a distance, never having actually been inside one before. It was like being in a little metal box. There was a mirror on one of the walls too, and he couldn’t help taking a quick look at his reflection. Yep – he looked perfect, as always.

Alix pressed one of the little buttons on the side panel and the doors closed. The lift suddenly felt a lot smaller – he could now see why being stuck inside one of these probably wasn’t much fun. There was a jolt and a creaking noise, and then the unnerving feeling of going upwards, without anything visible suggesting movement.

“This is so weird but cool,” Kim said. “Sorta like that feeling when aeroplanes take off, except like… less cool.”

Within a few more seconds the lift stopped and the doors opened. It seemed that this time it didn’t get stuck halfway after all, thank goodness. And they had made it to the peace conference in time.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” said the servant standing at the ornate doors to the hall, bowing as they exited the lift. “And… friend?”

“This is Prince Kim, a guest to this country,” Alix explained. “He’s unable to go home because of the trouble the Agreste Empire is causing, so I said he could come along to this meeting to bring his own experiences to the discussion.”

“Excellent idea, Your Majesty. Please enter.”

The servant opened the doors to reveal a large square table inside that many famous figures of royalty were seated around. There were also plates of food to eat from various different countries, and many of the members of royalty had large files of paper in front of them, clearly very prepared for this meeting. Kim couldn’t help noticing that most of them were adults and looked like they actually knew what they were doing. He was starting to have second thoughts about coming here. This was way out of his depth.

They sat down at two of the free seats and scrawled their names and country onto the name cards that had been provided for them. Looking around, Kim could see monarchs from countries he had never even heard of before. And he thought he had been _improving_ at his geography studies! Clearly he wasn’t doing well enough.

He’d have to get Max to help him with that…

Platonically, of course. Tutoring was something else entirely. Max had tutored Kim plenty before, and it worked well. And it would continue to work well. Kim would make sure of it. Of course, yes, Max was really cute, and listening to him drone on about nerdy things was just so _dreamy_ , but it wasn’t like Kim was going to let that get in the way of him studying or anything…

Ugh, this wasn’t the time to be daydreaming about Max. That could wait for later. For now, the peace conference was starting. The head of the International Alliance had stood up and was beginning her welcome speech. Right. Time to pay attention.

 

 

 

Over in Bourgeois, Imperial Princess Chloé was sitting in on a meeting herself. Rather than paying attention, she had mostly been doodling on the piece of paper in front of her. All her father ever talked about was money! Money, money, money. But he was so bad at keeping it. Very good at spending it, and even better at squeezing every last drop of it out of the working people. That was for sure.

Oh, this empire was such a _mess_. And yet her father had already started construction on a new wing for the school! How was he funding that? By raising taxes again? The people were not going to like that. They were discontent, and Chloé knew it. She had seen them glaring at her through the windows when she passed their fields in her gold-plated carriage. She had seen the maids whispering to each other in darkened palace corners, stopping when she came near.

She knew of the consequences of unhappy citizens, too. Sabrina’s kingdom was in a worse state than this empire, and the effects were beginning to show. The army had already been sent to put down local rebellions here and there, farmers with pitchforks setting fires and causing mayhem. Nothing too serious, but still. The common people were unhappy, and raising taxes and continuing an unnecessarily lavish lifestyle would only cause that to escalate.

Chloé had never even cared about these things before. She used to only focus on herself, pride herself on how proper and beautiful she was. But ever since going to that school and starting to see things from a different perspective… well, being back home was _stifling_. No one here understood. And what was with all these formalities? So unnecessary. Such a waste of time. People outside were starving, and all anyone in here cared about was whether or not you curtseyed properly, or if your wig was tall enough.

No wonder the commoners were growing so discontent…

“…and so the money for the renovations will be provided by the Agreste Empire, so long as you help us with a little important matter of ours.”

“Is the important matter the young Imperial Prince Adrien?”

“We still need to know his whereabouts, and your assistance would be greatly appreciated.”

“We can direct our forces to search for him, if you would like. There’s also the option of posters with a reward, and stricter border controls, and of course keeping a closer eye on the school in case he does return.”

“Yes, that would be ideal. As long as you put your best efforts into the search for the prince, we will fully cover the costs of the new wing at the school.”

“So it’s a deal then! I believe this is another step towards a formal alliance between our empires.”

“If you manage to find Adrien and return him to us, then an alliance is guaranteed.”

“We will find him, I promise you.”

Chloé froze, not moving a muscle. Had she really just heard what she thought she had heard?

Slowly lifting her head, she watched as her father shook hands with the diplomat from Agreste. Now they were both signing a piece of paper. Now exchanging money.

No. This couldn’t be happening. Her father _couldn’t_ be starting a manhunt for Adrien. No way. She had thought that now the guards from Agreste were gone from the school, Adrien would be safe there!

But now, if he came back, even if he tried to enter the empire, that would be it. The Bourgeois guards would hand him over to Agreste, and his freedom would be over. After everything he had gone through, after everything everyone had done for him…!

“Excuse me,” she said loudly, standing up and trying to ignore how stiff her dress was. “I would like to leave.”

“Sit down,” her father said, looking embarrassed. “We are in the middle of a meeting. You are not permitted to leave until it is over.”

“I need to leave, _now_ ,” she snapped. “I would like to use the latrine. It’s… that time of month.”

Her father’s eyes widened, and he quickly cleared his throat and said, “Very well then, you may go.”

“Thank you.”

She whipped round and strode towards the door, her outfit feeling so constraining and excessive compared to things she had been wearing at school recently.

She didn’t really need to use the toilet, and certainly wasn’t on her period right now. That had just been an excuse. Instead she made her way towards her room, where she opened her drawer and took out a pen, piece of paper, and some ink. Oh, how useful it would be to have one of those plastic pens from the techy countries right now, the ones that didn’t require a messy inkpot…

About to dip her pen into the ink, she stopped. No… writing a letter would be too risky. Letters could be intercepted. Heck, they probably _would_ be intercepted, if this manhunt for Adrien really was going ahead. She couldn’t put him in danger by being careless when she was only trying to help. She had to find another way to warn him. But how?

Oh, of course – the telephone!

Every kingdom had at least one telephone, that was a widely quoted fact. Chloé just hoped that it was true. Her own empire had one, she knew that, it was in her father’s office. But did Cheng have one? Hopefully it did. That was the only way she could think of to safely get the message to Adrien.

Or at least… it would be safe for Adrien, but not for _her_. She wasn’t allowed in her father’s office. If she was caught in there, she would be in so much trouble.

But she had to try, didn’t she? A bit of trouble for her was nothing compared with what would befall poor Adrien if he tried to come back to school. And anyway, this really couldn’t wait. Her father was in a meeting right now, this was the perfect time for it. Cheng was far away and she didn’t even know when Adrien and Marinette would be leaving to return to school. There was no time to waste.

Putting her writing equipment away, she dashed down the corridor and towards her father’s room. There were guards outside, of course. How was she supposed to get past them? She had always heard Alix boasting about her escapades getting past guards, or persuading them not to stop her, or whatever else. But what could Chloé do? This empire was a very different place, and things simply didn’t work the same way.

What if she _seduced_ them? Pfff, no, that would never work. What about distracting them? But how to do that?

Or what about a Lila tactic… just bluffing her way in…

“Good day to you,” she said as she walked towards them, nodding at them politely.

“Good day, Your Imperial Highness,” they replied in unison, bowing at her.

She walked right up to the door and simply opened it, smiling sweetly at the guards as she did so. They didn’t even make a move whatsoever. She entered the room and closed the door behind her. The guards still hadn’t done anything. Maybe they just expected her to be allowed inside, or assumed she must have had a valid reason for doing so.

Wow… they needed to be fired.

Right, anyway, she was in here now and needed to get on with the job before anyone found her. Hopefully her father’s meeting would still run for a bit longer. Now, where was that telephone? Ah yes, there on the corner of the desk. But wait… what was Cheng’s phone number?

Chloé quickly rifled through the drawers, having a look, feeling like such a spy. A part of her was almost excited about breaking the rules so badly like this. She couldn’t wait to tell Lila!

Papers, files, medals, stationery…

A phonebook!

Or at least, it said “phonebook” on the front of it, and it was a little book, so it was probably what she was looking for. Chloé carefully pulled it out of the drawer and put it onto the desk. Flipping through it, she saw phone numbers for various countries, ones that she had never been to and only seen on maps, ones that she knew didn’t even have monarchies, ones that she was forbidden from talking about. Vespuchia, Australis, Aotearoa… what must it be like to live in a country where there was no monarch in charge?

Oh, there it was – Cheng. Chloé picked up the phone receiver, dialled the number in, then pressed the call button and waited.

_Please let this work, oh please, Adrien deserves better than being locked up by his own family–_

“Greetings, Your Imperial Majesty, you have reached the kingdom of Cheng. What can we do for you today?”

Thank goodness! Chloé gripped the receiver tightly and said, “This is Imperial Princess Chloé of Bourgeois, and I would like to speak to Princess Marinette and the guest that she brought from school.”

“I’m sorry, Your Imperial Highness, they are asleep right now. It is late night here.”

No! How could she have forgotten that Cheng was in a different time zone, far to the east? Of course they’d be asleep now! But this really couldn’t wait.

“Is it possible to wake them up? Tell them it is _extremely_ urgent. They’ll understand. If it causes any trouble, I will take the responsibility for that.”

“Very well. Please hold while we see what we can do.”

Phew, hopefully they wouldn’t be too grumpy at being woken up for a phone call. Well, Adrien probably wouldn’t. But as for Marinette? Chloé got the feeling Marinette still didn’t like her very much. That was fair enough – a lot of people did not like Chloé. The important thing was that she was trying to change that.

“Chloé, ‘s that you? It’s so late…”

Marinette’s voice! She’d never felt so happy to hear it.

“Yes, Marinette, it’s me! Is Adrien there with you?”

“Yep, I’m here,” came the sound of Adrien’s voice. “I’m called Felix, by the way.”

Right. Felix. A codename. She should probably use that, just to be on the safe side.

“I have very important, disturbing news,” she said. “My father is building a new wing of the school but didn’t have the funds for it, so he’s made a deal with Agreste. They provide the money, and in return, he’s starting a manhunt to find you. They know you’ll probably come back to school, so they’re upping the guards, upping the border patrols, the police, the military – everything! You can’t come back!”

There was a pause for a few seconds before Adrien spoke.

“You mean… I have to stay here?”

“Yes, for your safety. I don’t have any proof or anything, I’m sorry, it’s too dangerous – I’m not even supposed to be in here, on the phone, telling you this, anything like that. But I don’t want you to be found! And trust me, I know my father. He’ll put all his efforts into this. He’s always trying to get on Agreste’s good side, and they said that if he manages to hunt you down, they’ll officially ally with Bourgeois. That’s a dream come true for my father, and a nightmare for you.”

Adrien sighed. “Well… I guess if it’s for the best, then…”

“It’s okay,” Marinette said, “I’ll stay here with you.”

“Is that really a good idea?” Chloé asked, knowing Marinette would hate her for it. “That will be so suspicious. They’ll know you’re hiding him then. And like I said, my father would do anything to get an official alliance with Agreste. The Bourgeois Empire is currently running on fumes alone and on the verge of economic collapse, especially with colonies seceding from us everywhere, and he needs the support. He would absolutely send his lackeys to Cheng to drag you away. And then the only choice for you would be to escape into exile.”

“But I can’t just leave Adrien all alone!”

“He’ll have your family, won’t he? And he’ll be safe! That’s the most important thing!”

“But how long will he have to stay hidden in Cheng?”

“I have no idea, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry, honestly I am. But this is all I can do to help. I’m sorry I can’t offer much more than a warning or advice.”

When Adrien spoke again, it sounded like his voice was cracking. “Thank you, Chlo. Thank you so much for warning me.”

She just wanted to hug him through the phone, she really did. Her best friend. Her _first_ friend. “You mean so much to me, I will always do my utmost to protect you! I promise.”

“You’re the best. I’ll stay here, then, until it’s safer for me.”

“I suppose I’ll have to go back to school without you then,” Marinette said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears too. “As long as you’re safe, that’s what matters.”

“I’ll stay safe. I’ve managed it this far, right?”

“Yes… you have…”

“Anyway, I really ought to go,” Chloé said. “I’m not supposed to be here and I don’t know how much time I have. Take care, both of you.”

“You too, Chloé!”

“Goodbye.”

She hung up and put the receiver back down, wiping it with her sleeve to get rid of the greasy powder smudges from her makeup. (Ugh, why did she have to cover her whole body in the stuff here? At school she only ever bothered making up her face!) Then she hastily put the phonebook back in the drawer.

Okay, she had managed that phone call without being caught. Now whatever happened, even if she did get into trouble, at least Adrien would be safe. She had done her duty.

Heading for the door, she was just about to go through when someone opened it from the other side. There was no time for her to hide. She just stood there in complete dread as she watched her father walk into the room.

He looked down at her for a few seconds, his expression slowly changing to one she wished she didn’t have to see. When she had been a little girl, her father never got angry at her. He’d give her all the gifts she ever wanted, always making sure she was happy, spoiling her rotten. But these past few years he really had been starting to take his parenting job more seriously. And _especially_ since she had been at school.

For a few awful moments he simply glared at her coldly. Then he said, rather slowly, “What do you think you’re doing in my office?”

Her throat felt dry. She hadn’t really thought of an excuse. Why couldn’t she be as good at Lila was at coming up with lies on the spot?

Wait… Lila!

“I was using the telephone,” Chloé said, standing up tall and trying not to let her voice tremble.

“And why would you be doing that?”

“I was phoning up Lila. My… friend.”

Best to leave it at that for now, no need to get into more trouble than was necessary.

“Why were you phoning up _Marchesa_ Lila, may I ask?”

“Because she is my close friend and I miss her, so I wanted to speak to her. Since telephones exist, I decided to make use of this convenient piece of modern technology.”

Emperor André sighed, looking more disappointed than anything else. “Lila is not _proper_ royalty, so really, you have no reason to be associating with her enough to call her a close friend, and you especially should not need to be telephoning her.”

A surge of anger ran through her. “Does it matter if she’s not ‘proper’ royalty? She’s a human being, just like any other, and so deserving of basic respect!”

“But her blood status–”

“O+, maybe, AB, who knows, it doesn’t matter! It’s just blood! It doesn’t mean a thing, father, and you would do well to learn that.”

“Now young lady,” he said, more sternly all of a sudden, “don’t talk to me in that tone of voice. You are not to call Lila again, do you hear me?”

“Fine!”

“And stop with all this nonsense. I don’t know where you’ve got all these ideas into your head, but you can get rid of them. Lila is a marquise, whether in your class at school or not, and you will treat her as such. Is that clear?”

As much as it hurt her to say it, Chloé nodded and said, “Yes father.”

“Good. And the next time I find you trespassing in my office, you’ll get a much harsher punishment than just a telling-off. I’m only letting you go now because I would rather you not make a scene. Alright? You’d better run along now and get back to whatever duties you ought to be doing.”

Chloé stormed past him without another word. She didn’t want to get into trouble but she knew if she stayed, she would end up arguing, and that would not turn out well. Why were the upper class of her empire so backwards all the time? And how could she ever have been one of them?

 

 

Three hours into the peace conference, Kim had long given up paying attention. He really had no clue what was going on. Instead he was fiddling about with the piece of paper in front of him, folding it into a boat, now a plane, now a frog, now Max… His thoughts always went back to Max in the end, didn’t they?

Oh, he had tried to concentrate. Something about some humanitarian crisis in Haprèle which they needed funds to send aid to (and why did that name sound so familiar to him?), a new rail line construction from Persia to Baluchistan being prevented by activities from the Agreste Empire, Iberia wanting to join the International Alliance now that it had successfully seceded from the Bourgeois Empire…

“…and now we feel it would be a good opportunity to hear from Prince Kim, who is here not just as a guest, but as someone who has been prevented from returning home due to the Agreste Empire’s violence. Lê Chiến may not be officially part of the International Alliance, but we are always ready to hear you speak. So if you would say a few words…?”

Queen Sol of Nubia was gesturing at him. Oh right, did he have to speak now? Maybe he should have been using this time to prepare something rather than just… ugh… daydreaming about Max again… He really was too sappy for his own good.

Everyone was looking at him expectantly. He stood up, acutely realizing he was still wearing rather sporty clothes as opposed to something formal, and cleared his throat.

“Good afternoon everyone,” he began. “I am Prince Kim from the kingdom of Lê Chiến. Unfortunately I cannot return home, as the Agreste Empire has been trying to take more land from my kingdom and their troops have been making the borders unsafe, even for trade. There were plans for a peace offering, but Agreste’s idea of a peace gift was to give us back land that they had totally stripped, leaving it worthless and barren. There are also suspicions that my grandfather’s recent death may not have been an accident, though we don’t know who was behind it.”

Okay, that speech hadn’t been too bad. He hadn’t really ended it so much as just stopped talking, so everyone stared at him in a few seconds of confused silence before Sol stood up again to speak.

“Thank you for your words, Your Highness. Your input is very valuable, and I am sorry that you are unable to return to your home. That must be very difficult for you.”

He nodded, not really sure whether or not to say something.

“Just know that the Agreste Empire is not allied with us in any way at all, and we thoroughly despise of many of their violent actions, so you will always be welcome in any of our countries here. I also offer my consolations for your grandfather’s death, that cannot have been easy for you. As you will be ascending the throne soon yourself at this young age, if you ever would like any assistance, please don’t hesitate to ask the International Alliance. Perhaps you will be part of it too one day.”

Kim was surprised to find himself tearing up a little. Why was Queen Sol so _nice?_ So… motherly? He just wanted her to hug him and tell him everything would be okay. He would believe it if she was the one saying it.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, then sat down again. The other royals were all looking at him with expressions of soft concern, like they too wanted to help him in some way. It was just too much – they were so nice! Why? How?

Queen Sol continued talking, sounding like she was finishing off the conference now. There were going to be more in the next few weeks as everything could not be discussed in just one meeting. Wow, ruling a country did seem like a lot of work, didn’t it?

“Good job, Emperor Palpatine,” Alix whispered next to him.

“I’m throwing you off the top of this tower,” he whispered back, trying not to laugh. That nickname was never going to leave, was it?

 

The conference finished shortly afterwards and everyone was let out of the hall. The monarchs all seemed to be giving Kim encouraging smiles as they passed, like they felt sorry for him or something. Well, to be fair, practically all of these countries were very well-off and very tech-advanced. The same couldn’t be said for Lê Chiến.

“Let’s go down in the lift again,” he said to Alix, not admitting out loud that he would rather run down all these stairs as fast as he could but didn’t want to in front of all these royals. “It didn’t break on the way up here, right? It’s probably permanently fixed or something.”

“I wouldn’t use that lift if I were you,” the passing Queen of Hindustan muttered. “A servant told me it gets stuck a lot.”

“See Kim?” Alix said, as the queen passed them and went for the stairs instead. “It’s gonna get stuck.”

“No it won’t!” he said. “And the lift is way cooler than the stairs! Lifts are like, electric and stuff! You literally stand in a box and it takes you down on its own and you can’t even see it from the inside, how cool is that?”

She smiled. “You really love tech, don’t you?”

“Yeah, who doesn’t?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised. But fine, we’ll go in the lift. If it gets stuck then I’m blaming you.”

“That’s fine. It won’t get stuck.”

They went into the lift and pressed the button to send it downwards. The door closed, and off the lift went.

“See?” Kim said. “It’s moving just fine. Did you know, Max said that in Atlantica, lifts are called elevators? Isn’t that weird?”

At that exact moment, there was a crunching sound and the lift stopped moving. The doors did not open. Alix pressed the open button a few times, but it did nothing. She gave the doors a kick, too, and they still didn’t budge. She turned to Kim, looking more unimpressed than he had ever seen her.

“You _imbecile_ , you – you – _Kimbecile!_ Didn’t I tell you it was gonna get stuck?!”

Kim scratched the back of his head nervously. “Um… yeah… whoops…”

“We should have taken the stairs. Now I’m gonna ending up breaking another wrist and it’ll be your fault.” She sat down on the floor. The snake looked at Kim and hissed angrily. Did that snake understand French or something? It always seemed to react to whatever Alix was saying.

“I’ve got my phone,” Kim said. “I can just call Max, and then…”

Unexpectedly, she started laughing.

“What?”

“Don’t count on it,” she said.

“Why not?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tried calling Max. For some reason the call wouldn’t go through. He tried sending a message, and that wouldn’t work either. “Why isn’t this working?”

“No signal in here, that’s why. Same thing happened with me and Max last time. We’ve just gotta wait it out until someone checks this stupid lift.”

“So like… we’re stuck in here for a few hours?”

“Yep.”

“But then what do we do?”

“I don’t know. Start brainstorming.”

He tried to think of ideas, but nothing was coming to mind. Play lacrosse? Pffff, not in a lift, where they didn’t even have lacrosse sticks. Read a book? Watch a movie? Not possible. Call Max? Super not possible! What had he done last time he was bored that didn’t require any equipment or anything? Well… there was always…

At the same time as Alix suggested, “We should have a fist fight!” Kim suggested, “We should make out!”

For a few seconds they just stared at each other in disbelief.

“Those are… both very bad ideas, actually,” Alix said finally.

“Then I guess we just sit here bored?”

“Well… a little fist fight maybe? Come on, remember that one time in that one Monopoly game where we both wanted the last dark blue card, and it got a bit… violent…”

“That wasn’t exactly fun though,” Kim said. “Okay, how about a compromise – we have a fist fight, _then_ make out. And that way any hickeys will be mistaken for bruises. Oh wait – what did you call them at the winter party? _Hockeys…_ ”

She rolled her eyes. “I know they’re not called that, I just couldn’t remember the word.”

“Hey – if my nickname is Emperor Palpatine, yours should be Hockey! Yeah!”

“Don’t even think about it or I will start that fist fight right now.”

“You really wanna fight me, don’t you, _Hockey?”_

She grinned and hit him in the arm. “Well, _Emperor Palpatine_ , I very much want to, but I also know that would be a bad idea, and I’ve been trying to get my recklessness under control lately, so you should probably do the same.”

“Yeah… I wish Max was here with us. N-not because I like him! I mean, because I don’t act so stupid when he’s around. And maybe then I would be able to think of something sensible to do.”

“True. Us two being stuck indefinitely in a lift without Max is probably the worst thing that could happen.”

“Hmm… another compromise. We can make it less stupid. You punch me, and then I get to kiss you.”

She just sighed. “Only one punch? Just one?”

“Look, why do you even want to fight me so bad? Aren’t I your best friend?”

“Well I could ask you the same – why are you so hell-bent on kissing me? You said you were long over me! You’re head over heels for Max!”

“Hey, I asked you first. You answer first.”

“Fine.” Alix put down her snake and let it wander around the lift on its own accord. “I hate being short. There, I said it! I’m short and I hate it. I’m small and scrawny and people don’t take me seriously. And it’s not that I want people to be scared of me, because I don’t! But no one looks at me and thinks I’m strong. That I’m sporty, or can win arm wrestles, or whatever. So I wanna fight, because it makes me think I can actually do stuff. All short people wanna fight. It’s a thing.”

“So… you want to fight because you’re short.”

“Yes.”

“Okay…”

“Now your turn.”

“Oh, well…”

He hadn’t really thought about it. He was just _bored_ , and it was the first thing that came to mind that was fun. It had been fun at the winter party, anyway.

“I know you won’t agree,” he started off, feeling kind of awkward, “but like… kissing’s pretty fun, okay? Sometimes I just want to, it doesn’t matter who with, it just… I don’t know how to describe it. I’m not the only one, I know that! Marinette says it happens to her too. Maybe it’s a teenagery thing. Well, some teenagers. So yeah. I’m bored and maybe a bit horny and I wanna make out.”

She winced. “That stupid timeline twin is yelling at me a lot right now. I thought she had stopped talking to me after running off with Adrien, but apparently not. She’s telling me not to be reckless.”

“Oh… so does your timeline twin count as our ‘Max’ then? Our impulse control?”

“Heck no, I’m not listening to _her!_ She’s annoying. Maybe right sometimes about some things, but mostly annoying. So I’m just gonna ignore her.”

“So uh, anyway... we still need to decide what to do…”

“Whatever happens, I get to punch you at least twice. And for the record, what happens in the lift _stays in the lift_. No telling anyone I beat you up. Or kissed you, if that happens, which I am still considering because honestly it’s kinda gross, no offence.”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “And I’m still considering the ‘getting beaten up’ part, because like… it’s kinda painful, so…”

“Yeah, fair enough.”

“How long have we been stuck in here anyway?”

Alix checked the watch on her sceptre. “Like four minutes.”

“Only?! And how long were you stuck in here with Max last time?”

“Two hours.”

Kim put his head in his hands. “Oh man, this is gonna be so _long…_ ”


	40. The lacrosse battle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you think I was on low sleep while writing this chapter, you are absolutely right! Prepare for chaos :D

A few days had passed. The final lacrosse match was going to take place this afternoon. Kim knew, in his heart, his team was going to lose. They were all just so _bad_ at the game! None of them knew how to play properly and without a proper coach to teach them, they really hadn’t been improving at all. It would be better to just get the inevitable loss over with.

That being said, there was still something to take care of first…

Waking early in the morning, Kim crept to the meeting place in a “hoodie” – apparently a newish piece of clothing that was very good for concealing one’s identity if need be. (And plus, it was very comfortable.) Sure enough, one of his fellow conspirators was already there. Princess Alya was wearing a long cloak that covered most of her, only recognizable from the strands of golden-red hair escaping her hood.

“Have you got the goods?” Kim asked her, making sure to keep his voice low.

“Yep,” Alya replied, taking a tiny pouch out of her pocket. “And you?”

“Got it.” Kim held up the bundle of clothes he had brought along. “Now we just need to wait for our… accomplice.”

“He should be here soon. He just tends to wake up late.”

“Why am I not surprised.”

They waited a few more minutes, and sure enough, Jalil turned up. Unfortunately he wasn’t wearing anything conspiratorial whatsoever.

“Why are you two dressed like you’re going to mug someone?” he asked rather loudly, yawning.

“Keep your voice down!” Kim whisper-yelled at him. “This is supposed to be a secret meeting!”

“But there’s no one around…”

“Shhh! There could be someone spying on us!”

“In that case you’re making yourselves look very conspicuous indeed. Anyway, where’s the stuff? I still can’t believe I agreed to help you with this, honestly.”

Kim and Alya gave him their items.

“You know what to do,” Alya said. “And remember, speak of this to no one.”

Jalil just looked down at both of them, clearly unimpressed. “Come on, it’s just a practical joke. It isn’t like we’re smuggling drugs or anything. You can chill with the superspy act. I mean Alya, aren’t you an actual spy? Surely all these theatrics are unnecessary.”

“Of course they are, but it’s more fun this way!”

Kim turned to face her. “You mean all your normal spy network meetings aren’t like this?”

“No, of course not! I just agreed on the cloaks and secrecy because you suggested it, and it sounded more interesting than doing it the normal, boring way!”

Oh. Kim had always expected Alya’s spy ring to be like something out of a fantasy book. Talk about being let down.

“Let’s just go already,” he muttered, trying not to sound too disappointed. “I’ll see you guys at the lacrosse match later.”

“Yep, see you soon!”

They all went their separate ways, Kim taking the hood off his head now that he didn’t need it anymore. Well, apparently he had never even needed it in the first place, since real spies were _boring_. What a shame.

 

 

The crowd of servants that turned up to watch the lacrosse match was larger than Kim had been expecting. He stood at the edge of the pitch with his team, watching them, feeling his heart sinking. This was going to be so humiliating. And what was that? More people were filing into the stands, ready to watch–

Oh drat, that was _Queen Sol!_ What on earth was she doing here?! And a few other members of royalty too, from the looks of it! They sat down and gave Kim’s team a friendly wave. He tentatively waved back.

“We’ve got royalty watching us too,” he muttered to his teammates. “That one in the bright yellow robes is the head of the International Alliance, Queen Sol.”

“Chill out, she’s really nice,” Alix said, whacking her lacrosse stick on the palm of her hand rather ominously, as if she was preparing to bash someone over the head with it. “One time I skated right into her and knocked her over, and all she did was laugh and ask me if I could teach her skating. She’s cool.”

“I know, but still!”

“It’s okay, Kim!” Nino said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’re a team. We’ll do our best, and that’s what matters!”

“We have an 87% chance of losing, by the way,” Max said. “Just thought I’d let you know.”

“Well, that still leaves a 13% chance of winning. Right Max. Before we start, what are your last pieces of advice?”

“Why are you asking me? I’m not sporty.”

“But you’re smart!”

“Fine. Team discussion, go.” The team all huddled round him. “Kim, you need to stop throwing the ball so far because none of us are very good at catching it. Alya, you need to get your eyesight checked. I don’t know what else to say. Nino, stop running away from the ball, you’re supposed to be trying to go _towards_ it. And Alix… please stop hitting people. You got all that?”

“What about my snake?” Alix asked, holding up the reptile in question. “He’s part of the team too.”

“Your snake needs to stay out of the way so people don’t step on him. There we go. Everyone happy?”

They all nodded.

“Good. Now let’s get out there and do our best!”

The team’s pep talk had finished just in time, as Adam’s team was now arriving on the scene. They were all wearing sunglasses – plastic ones, by the looks of it – and had their lacrosse sticks slung over their shoulders like rifles.

“Oh hello there, Emperor Palpatine!” Adam said, waving. “You ready to lose?”

“Lose what, that annoying nickname?” Kim retorted. “Because that’s the only thing I’ll be losing today.”

Adam just smirked at him, then turned to his team and said, “Come on, guys. Let’s show these royals what us ‘peasants’ are made of.”

Was that what this was all about? Kim had never meant it as a commoner vs royals thing. He hadn’t even thought about that! But perhaps it looked rather different from Adam’s point of view.

The two teams assembled on the pitch, with Adam’s team members removing their sunglasses and tossing them into the crowd. Jalil, who had been chosen to be the referee, came to stand in the middle of them.

“Alright, teams. You know the rules. You’re playing lacrosse, not pankration, so please don’t kill anyone. If Adam’s team wins, Kim will have to give Adam the áo dài he wore at the Peace Ball. If Kim’s team wins, Adam will have to wear a dunce hat for a week. The two respective items are over on that table there.”

Jalil pointed to a table at the side of the pitch where the áo dài and the dunce hat were. Kim smiled. Perfect. At least if they lost, the plan was still working out. Thank goodness Jalil had agreed to help them.

“Okay, is everyone ready? I’m going to stand back and blow the whistle, then you start.”

He stepped off the pitch and then did a countdown with his fingers, before blowing the whistle and beginning the match.

Chaos ensued. It seemed that Kim’s team and Adam’s team were playing the game with different rules, and it turned the match into something that probably didn’t even remotely resemble lacrosse. Jalil simply sat on the sidelines, flipping through a magazine, barely paying attention unless someone had scored a goal. The crowd were cheering wildly. It was the oddest sports match Kim had ever been a part of in his whole life, which was saying something, considering how much sports he had played.

“Hey, you can’t do that, that’s cheating!” Adam yelled as Kim tripped him over with his stick, then grabbed the ball off the floor near where Adam had fallen.

“NINO! GO LONG!”

Kim swung the lacrosse stick and threw the ball towards Nino, who was waiting expectantly. The ball soared far over the top of his head. Whoops.

“I’ll get it!” Alya called. She ran towards the ball, only to run directly into someone from the other team. As in, collided directly and bounced backwards, rubbing her head. Kim just rolled his eyes and started running for the ball himself, as far away as it was.

“Kim, your field position indicates that you’re not allowed in that area of the pitch!” he could hear Adam yelling. He just ignored him and carried on going. Nearly there, nearly there, nearly there…

“If they’re not playing by the rules then neither should we!” he heard someone from the other team saying, followed by shouts of support. The next thing he knew, he had been shoved to the ground by someone rather burly with a giant stature that reminded him of Ivan. The burly player ran past him and scooped up the ball, then threw it to Adam.

“See, Prince Kim? We can play like you guys too!”

Ohhhh, that guy! Kim jumped to his feet and ran after him.

Adam was close enough to the goal to shoot. He threw the ball, and though Max tried hard to stop it, he didn’t quite manage to make it.

“Ha! Take that!” Adam high fived one of his nearby teammates.

“Good try, Max!” Kim called, trying to sound as supportive as possible.

The ball was put back in the centre of the pitch and the match continued. Things got even worse.

“Ew, is that a SNAKE? WHAT THE HECK IS THAT DOING THERE WHAT–”

The snake, holding a lacrosse stick in its tail, had begun wounding around the leg of one of Adam’s teammates who was holding the ball, causing them to drop it. The snake then used its tail to flick the ball towards Kim, who scooped it up.

“Thanks buddy!” he called. The snake hissed at him in reply. Huh, sometimes he was _sure_ that snake could understand French. How intelligent were queen cobras, anyway? Did the fact that this snake was a “guardian animal” make it smarter than the rest of its species?

Adam suddenly appeared out of nowhere and tripped Kim up.

“Two can play at the tripping game, Kim!”

Kim just whacked him in the leg with his lacrosse stick.

“Ow! Hey, you can’t–”

“Yes I can. Alya, catch!” He stood up and threw the ball towards Alya. She squinted at it, seemingly find it hard to focus on. Dang, she really did need glasses, didn’t she? But against all odds she caught it.

“Hey, I did it!”

“Great! Now try and score a goal!”

“Okay…”

She turned to head towards the goal when she was ambushed by three of the opposing team at the same time, including the big burly one who had knocked Kim over earlier. Oof… that didn’t look pleasant. Someone needed to go help her.

“Yo Alix!” Kim called. Alix had merely been standing near the side of the pitch, chatting to Jalil, not even paying attention to the match at all.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“They’re attacking Alya. Give them hell.”

Her expression turned to one of determination. She picked up her lacrosse stick and skated towards–

Wait, she was wearing her _skates?_

Within a few seconds she was there. She had said that all short people wanted to fight, right? Well she was definitely getting to fight now. And from the look on her face, she was _enjoying_ it.

Alya managed to get away and ran over towards Kim, where things were a little less hectic. “Thanks, Alix!”

“No problem!” Alix called back, before carrying on mercilessly hitting the opponents with a very nasty smile on her face.

“Isn’t that against the rules?” Adam called from somewhere behind, running over as fast as he could.

“Only rule is don’t kill anyone – no one said anything about fighting!”

“Alright then,” Adam said, cracking his knuckles. “You want a fight? You’re getting a fight.” He ran towards the brawl.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Kim said, trying not to laugh too much. He and Alya merely watched as Alix, who had already managed to overcome the other three opponents, knocked the lacrosse stick out of Adam’s hand and shoved him to the ground.

“Uh, guys?” Nino said, running over to join them. “Aren’t we supposed to be like… scoring goals and stuff?”

“Then go for it!” Kim said. “Max said to stop running away from the ball!”

Nino nodded, clenching his fists. He ran towards the fray and picked up the ball from where it was lying on the ground nearby. Then he ran towards the goal and chucked it. The goalie managed to stop it and threw it to one of the remaining members of Adam’s team.

“Aw, nice try though Nino!” Kim called, giving him a thumbs up.

“Thanks dude!”

He suddenly heard a rather maniacal laugh, followed by some very angry swearing.

“HEY, YOU GIVE THAT BACK TO ME _RIGHT NOW_ , YOU STUPID LITTLE SON OF A–”

Half the servants in the crowd were covering their ears at the language that followed. Kim turned to see that Adam had somehow managed to steal one of Alix’s skates and was running away, cackling, while she was attempting to chase after him on one skate alone. And she was clearly very, very angry about it.

“Don’t worry Alix, we’ll avenge you!” Alya called. She ran towards Adam and tried to grab the skate from him. He tried to hit her with his lacrosse stick but she shielded the blow with her own. He tried again from another angle, and she parried the blow again. The next second, they seemed to be having a sword duel. Using _lacrosse sticks_.

“Pfff, neither of them are as good at it as I am,” Kim said, to no one in particular. In any case, while Adam was distracted, he ran up and simply took the skate out of his hand. “Thanks, bye!”

“Wait, what? No!”

“Too late, sucker!” Kim was already running towards the goal. He got to it and threw the skate in. Surprisingly, the goalie missed. “Yeah, take that! I just scored a goal!”

“NO YOU DIDN’T KIM, THAT WAS MY _SKATE_ , NOT THE BALL, GIVE IT BACK TO ME ALREADY OR I WILL STRANGLE YOU WITH YOUR OWN INTESTINES–”  

Oh… whoops. He turned to see Alix half limping towards him, looking utterly furious. He turned back to see that the goalie had picked up the skate and stuffed it down the front of their shirt, looking smug. Yikes, this did not seem like the ideal place to be if he wanted to avoid being – what was it? – strangled with his own intestines, and whatever other colourful things Alix was saying.

There was a hissing sound and the snake zoomed past along the ground, heading straight for the goalie. Within a few seconds it had slithered up their leg, dived under the shirt, retrieved the skate, and was now bringing it back to Alix.

“YES! THANK YOU! You’re the only one I can trust on this team!”

The snake chucked the skate at her and she put it back on her foot. Oh, thank goodness. Now hopefully she wouldn’t run around threatening to murder everyone.

“Haha, another score for Adam!” came the sound of Adam’s voice from the opposite end of the pitch. It seemed that he had managed to get the ball and score again, and Alya was running after him looking completely livid. Wait – where was her lacrosse stick?

Oh… Adam had it. He was holding two lacrosse sticks. Wow.

“Let’s go get revenge,” Alix snapped.

“Yeah,” Kim said, “we really need to–”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” She picked up her snake. “Good going, pal. Keep up the good work.” Watching her skate off with it, Kim just sighed. What a match this was turning out to be.

The ball was placed back in the centre of the pitch, and the chaos resumed. Kim was pretty sure at one point he was kicked in the face by someone, possibly someone on his own team, though at this point he couldn’t be sure whether or not anything was real. At one point Alya went berserk and got revenge on someone for daring to attack Nino. Adam’s team’s goalie seemed to be taking a nap. The big burly player had hoisted Alix up onto their shoulder and refused to let her down, despite her kicking and screaming and overly violent threats.

“Looks like it’s you and me, bud,” Kim said to the snake. “That skinny one over there has the ball. I’ll go get it from them. If they try to throw it to that teammate on the right, which I think they will, you go and scare the teammate off and get the ball, or keep them occupied until I can get to it. You got that?”

The snake blinked slowly at him. That was good enough for him. He gave it a quick pat and then ran over towards the opponent. Sure enough, they looked rather startled and tried to pass the ball to their teammate instead. Kim turned to see that the snake had done its job, clambering all over the opponent and scaring them enough that they dropped their lacrosse stick and started running away. The snake then leapt off and scooped up the ball with its lacrosse stick, zooming towards the goal.

“Yes!” Kim called, his spirits lifting. “You can do it! Go for it, Kim the First! Score the goal! The goalie’s still asleep!”

The snake had reached optimum distance from the goal. It lifted up the lacrosse stick with its tail, leant back, then thrust it forwards and sent the ball flying. Almost at the same time, there was a whistle noise.

“Aaaaaaaaaaand time’s up!”

The ball fell into the goal.

Kim wheeled round to face Jalil. “Please tell me that last goal counted.”

“Nope,” Jalil said, putting his magazine down and walking onto the pitch. “It was after the match ended. Doesn’t count.”

“No! That’s so unfair!”

“What, and everything you idiots were up to during this match _wasn’t_ unfair? Please.”

The other players had finally stopped fighting, now coming to stand around too. Everyone looked rather unhappy, and possibly more than a little injured.

“Anyway,” Jalil said, “I have to say, that was quite an incredible match. I even stopped reading because it was just such a fascinating trainwreck to watch. The crowd absolutely adored it, by the way. Isn’t that right?”

He turned and pointed at the crowd, who cheered wildly. Even Queen Sol and the other royals were smiling brightly, clapping and cheering as loudly as the servants were. Well, at least they weren’t weirded out. Kim knew that the International Alliance had been founded to promote peace, and that match… well, it had been the opposite of peaceful.

“The player of the match,” Jalil continued, “is definitely the snake, Imhotep, colloquially known as ‘Kim the First’ because my sister is an idiot when it comes to naming things. So, snake, if you would like to collect your trophy…”

What? There was a trophy??? If Kim had known that, he would have tried a lot harder! How could he get beaten out by a creature that didn’t even have any limbs?!

He watched glumly as the snake curled up around the little trophy that was presented to it. The crowd were going crazy. Kim tried not to feel too jealous. He had always wanted people to cheer for him like that.

“And now for the consequences of the challenge,” Jalil said, smiling a little. “The winner of this match, by one goal, is Adam’s team.”

The servants erupted into cheers again. Kim was sure they would not be cheering so loudly if the royals had won. Huh, perhaps the servants really had been taking this as a “commoners vs royals” game after all.

“And therefore, as per the rules of the challenge that were decided before this match, Adam now has full possession of Kim’s áo dài. It’s on that table over there. Go for it.”

Oh yes… _oh yes_. Now things were going to be good. If everything had gone according to plan, Kim would have his revenge now. Hopefully Jalil had gone through with his part of the deal. Kim exchanged a glance with Alya, who seemed to be trying not to smile.

“Yes, we win!” Adam said, grinning way too cockily, running towards the table and grabbing the áo dài. “Now this gorgeous thing is _mine!_ I can look like a royal too now!”

“Why don’t you put it on right now and show us?” Kim suggested, seriously trying not to betray any laughter in his voice.

“Yeah, I will, thanks. Then you can call me Prince Adam.”

Adam pulled off his shirt, leading to the sound of plenty of swooning sighs from the servants, and then put on the tunic part of the áo dài. He turned to the crowd.

“How do I look?”

They all cheered, some even throwing flower petals at him. Kim just stood there waiting, trying not to laugh, as Adam carried on showing off. This was going to be good.

“It’s a bit big for me, I know, but I can always get that sorted out later… and anyway, the point is that I now own a royal piece of clothing, so I win that bet which the tailor gave me too, so cough up…”

He started scratching a little at one of his arms. Kim held his breath, trying not to betray any emotion.

“Hmm, is it a little tight in the arms? No… it’s not tight… it’s just… itchy…”

Adam was scratching the front now, looking slightly uncomfortable. Kim couldn’t help himself – he grinned. Out of the corner of the eye, he could see his teammates grinning too. Even Jalil was smiling a little.

“Ugh, Kim, how do you wear this thing? It’s so itchy! It’s… oh man… this is so uncomfy...” He was itching all over now. “Seriously, are you meant to wear something underneath it or what? Are all royal clothes like this? It feels like I’m on FIRE, dang… or like someone’s put… wait a second…”

He turned to look at Kim’s team, a look of horror on his face.

“Did you put _itching powder in here?”_

Kim just burst into laughter.

“You! You – no! How could you?!”

“I promise I didn’t do it!” Kim managed to say. He wasn’t lying, technically it wasn’t him who had actually, physically, put the itching powder in the clothes. That was Jalil. All he had done was ask Alya to acquire itching powder from somewhere, and then given it and the clothes to Jalil.

“I didn’t do it either,” Alya said, shrugging. The rest of the team nodded, also affirming that it wasn’t them.

“Maybe you’re just allergic to me,” Kim suggested.

“Is this because I called you Emperor Palpatine in front of everyone at the Peace Ball?” Adam asked, trying and failing to get the tunic off, unable to pull it over his head without someone’s help.

“Yeah, pretty much!”

One of Adam’s teammates had gone to help him and he finally managed to get the tunic off. Adam just stared at Kim for a few seconds. Kim wondered if he was about to be punched by a servant. But then Adam held out his hand.

“Not bad, Prince Kim. Not bad at all.”

Confused, Kim shook his hand. “I, uh, didn’t expect you to take it this well…”

“Most visiting royals are all stuffy and pretentious, looking down on us commoners, treating us like trash. I like the ones that treat us like people. And I especially like the ones who have a bit of _spunk_ to them.”

“Uh… spunk?”

“Yeah. You’re a bit like me, Kim. You’re pretty cool. And that match was fun.”

Kim nodded. “It was fun.”

“Your teammates seem cool too. So yeah, if you ever need any favour from any of us, just ask me. I’ll get it done. I know royals and commoners aren’t supposed to be friends but I don’t care. You can be my friend.”

Friend, really? This guy?

Well, it might be fun to have a servant as a friend.

“Thanks,” Kim said. “Yeah, we can be friends.”

“Nice!”

The crowd, who had been watching silently, now stood up and launched into cheers again. Even Queen Sol and her associates were looking pleased. Evidently they weren’t the kind of people who frowned on interclass friendships.

“So now that the match is over,” Jalil said, “you can all leave now and we can get someone to clean the bloodstains out of the pitch. I should also mention that I think itching powder does wash out, so you will still be able to wear the áo dài, Adam.”

“Oh good,” he replied, as the crowd started to filter out.

“And also I was the one who put the itching powder in there, gotta go, bye!”

Jalil sped off before anyone could even react. For a few seconds Adam just stared in shock. Then he started laughing, so cheerfully that Kim couldn’t help but join in. Thank goodness this guy had a good sense of humour.

“Anyway Prince Kim, I’ll be leaving you now,” he said once he had managed to stop. “I’ve got chores to get back to. See you around, yeah?”

“Yeah, see you.”

“By the way, where did you get the itching powder from? Might use some myself.”

“Mylène gave me some ages ago,” Alya said, stepping forward. “Apparently she likes to play tricks on people.”

“What, really?” Kim said. “Are we talking about the same Mylène here?”

“Yes.”

“Wow…”

“Well then,” said Adam, “I’ll just have to find some from somewhere around here. See you later, guys!”

He and the rest of his teammates ran off. Most of the crowd had left by now too.

“I think I lost a tooth today,” Alix said, picking up the trophy that her snake was still curled up around. “I need a nap. And painkillers.”

“Same,” Alya muttered, taking Nino’s hand. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

The three of them left, leaving just Kim and Max. The adrenaline of the match had made Kim completely forget that having Max nearby also gave him an adrenaline rush, for entirely different reasons. But now he remembered, alright.

“So,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “That was fun, huh?”

Max chuckled, removing his goalie helmet. “In some ways, yes. I enjoyed watching the match, if not participating in it.”

“Yeah, well, it did get a bit over the top.”

“I think you in particular did very well, though.” Max stepped a little closer to Kim. “You didn’t get distracted by brawling nearly as much as everyone else did.”

“Really?” Kim could feel himself blushing, and he furiously willed himself to stop it. “I thought everyone said the best player was the snake.”

“The snake already got a trophy for his efforts. I think you deserve something for your efforts, too.”

“Aww Max, that’s so nice of you…”

“And honestly I’m not quite sure what to give you. I know you already have a lot of sports trophies, considering how much sport you’ve done in the past, and how… _athletic_ you are.”

Max had been looking him up and down while saying that, and now quickly looked off to the side. Kim blushed even harder. He already had suspected that Max liked him back but… was Max _flirting?_

“So not a trophy,” Max continued. “Perhaps not some shallow material prize. Maybe just something to show my appreciation. Something small. Not a big deal.”

“Max, you don’t have to!” Kim said, hoping he didn’t sound as flustered as he felt. “Seriously, it’s just some stupid sports game, not even a real match, don’t worry–”

He stopped abruptly as Max hopped up and kissed him on the cheek.

Max.

Had kissed him.

On the cheek.

His brain seemed to have stopped working entirely.

_Max had kissed him on the cheek._

He couldn’t process it.

_Max had kissed him on the cheek!!!_

“Heh… see you later, Kim…”

As if from a distance, he watched Max walk off, turning back to smile at him a few times as he did so.

It still wasn’t sinking in. Kim didn’t move a muscle for at least five minutes, just standing there, his hand on his cheek in shock.

Was that… was it platonic? Romantic? Had it even been _real?_ Had any of today been real?

A stupid grin was spreading over his face. He covered it with his hands, feeling like a lovestruck idiot, probably blushing like crazy. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. Max had actually, really, kissed his cheek, and that was the only thing that mattered to him right now.

Yeah, there was no way today had been real.


	41. I love you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have two chapters in one update, just because *shrug*

Max usually prided himself on being able to keep his emotions in check. He would watch other people freaking out over minor things, having meltdowns, being stressed out, and yet he would just smile to himself and be thankful that he was far better at regulating himself.

Or so he thought.

Hammering on Alix’s door, he knew he was having what many people would call a “freak out”. It felt so bizarre, and he couldn’t even think about it rationally. He was far too busy trying not to just run around screaming.

Alix opened the door, looking surprised. “Max? You can knock more quietly than that, you know.”

“Sorry,” Max said, acutely realizing his voice sounded somewhat more frantic and high-pitched than usual. “I just… um… can I talk to you? I think I just did something silly. And screwed everything up.”

“You’re Max, you don’t have the capacity to do anything silly. But sure, come in.”

Max pushed past her into the room and immediately began pacing around. He had seen Kim do that many times when frustrated, not realizing that it was actually somewhat helpful when his mind was whirring too fast to focus on.

Oh boy… the thought of Kim didn’t help. It didn’t help at all.

“So what’s up?” Alix asked, closing the door and going to sit down. It was strange to see her so oddly calm when to his mind, everything was blowing up and falling apart.

“I screwed up,” he said. “I did. I just… I was talking to Kim just now and I was telling him how well he did in the lacrosse match and I just wasn’t really thinking and I… I… _I kissed him on the cheek!”_

“Dude, that sounds like the opposite of a problem to me!”

Alix had a huge grin on her face. Oh, how could she not understand? Max wished his brain was in a clearer place so that he would be able to explain it to her properly.

“No, it’s a disaster,” he managed to say. “It was… a mistake! A mess! Kim’s probably so weirded out right now, or maybe he doesn’t care, I don’t even know! What was I thinking?!”

He thrust his face into his hands, feeling himself starting to hyperventilate. This had never happened before – what was even happening to him? Why had he gone and ruined everything so badly?

“Max. It’s okay. Breathe.”

He felt Alix’s hands on his shoulders. It grounded him a little. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down.

“Why am I freaking out?” he mumbled.

“Dude. It’s okay to be emotional sometimes. You really love Kim a lot, don’t you?”

He just nodded. It felt almost like an understatement. The way he felt about Kim, right now, at this moment… there were no words to describe it.

“Exactly. So it’s understandable that you’re freaking out. It’s alright. You’re human, it can happen.”

She was right. How was it that Alix, of all people, was being more logical than him? He just closed his eyes and hugged her.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For just bursting in here and dumping all this on you…”

“Hey, you’re my best friend, you’re welcome to do that any time. Anyway, are you feeling a little better?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Good.” She let go of him. “Then maybe you should sit down, I’ll get you a glass of water or something, and then you can try and think about all this in your logical, Max-style way. Okay?”

He nodded and took a seat. His mind was feeling almost numb now. The events of today had been so unpredictable that it was messing with him. He just needed to think things through logically. That always helped. He just had to calm down.

Alix soon returned with a glass of water, which she handed to him – he hadn’t even noticed her leave. The cool water did seem to refresh him somewhat. He could feel that he was slowly returning to his normal self, thank goodness. Still shaky, but it was getting better.

“So,” Alix said. “Do you wanna explain what happened?”

Max nodded and put the glass down. “After the lacrosse match just now, everyone else had already left, and only Kim and I remained. I congratulated him on doing so well and told him that if the snake got a present for his efforts, then Kim certainly should too. He insisted I didn’t need to give him anything, but then I just…”

The jitters were returning. He gulped them down and carried on.

“…I kissed him on the cheek. And then I left. It was only when I was halfway to my room that the full extent of what I had done hit me, and I ran straight here. So that’s what happened.”

It sounded silly now that he said it out loud, but to her credit, Alix seemed to be taking it seriously.

“So why do you think this means you screwed up?” she asked.

Max took a deep breath, trying to find the right words. “Kim and I… we’ve always been very close. Emotionally, physically, everything. But there was a sort of balance to it. It was always understood that all our affections are platonic in nature – deeply, strongly platonic. But now I’ve gone and upset that balance. A kiss on the cheek – well…”

“I see what you mean,” Alix said. “But you realize that if you ever want to actually get together with Kim, you were gonna have to break that balance at some point, right?”

“I know,” Max sighed. “But I was going to do it properly. Not so… I don’t know… ambiguously! I have no idea what Kim could be thinking. He seemed rather surprised, but I didn’t stay long enough to notice anything else. Maybe I should have. And now I don’t know what I’m going to do!”

“Uh, just tell him you like him?”

Max shook his head. “I… I _can’t_. I know you’re trying to help me with it, But I just… I feel… I’m… afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

Max shrugged. “That he’ll reject me, and it’ll hurt? I’ve seen that happen to Kim himself plenty of times now, I know it’s unpleasant…”

“But what if Kim likes you back?”

“It’s unlikely. But then again…”

A plan was formulating in his mind, finally. Thank goodness his normal sense of logic was returning.

“I know what I’ll do,” he said. “If Kim loves me back, he will have taken that gesture as romantic, and he’ll probably make a move or bring it up. That’s the kind of person he is. If he doesn’t love me back, I’ll just act like it never happened, and probably so will he. There we go.”

“Act like it never happened? Seriously?! Max, you managed to make a move! You can’t just give up now!”

She was looking at him in earnest. Oh, she didn’t understand. She just didn’t.

“I’ve made up my mind,” he said. “Anyway, come to think of it, there is a chance that Kim will have seen the gesture as platonic. After all, the two of you have kissed how many times now? And it never meant anything or changed anything between you. So it could be the same this time.”

“It’s not the same,” she said, frowning. “If you want him to have seen it as platonic, you have to specifically, outright tell him that. He knows perfectly well I’m aromantic, so it doesn’t matter how much we mess around, he knows it doesn’t mean anything. You, on the other hand…”

Max knew she was right. Unless Kim actually told him, there was a chance that Max would never know what he thought. A chance that maybe his heart wouldn’t need to get broken.

“Whatever,” he said. “I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen. If he wants to do otherwise then he can instigate that himself.”

Alix smacked herself in the forehead. “Why did I agree to be winggirl for you, honestly…”

“I’m sorry, Alix. But if I want to avoid more freak outs and heartbreak then this is the best choice for me.” He stood up to leave.

“Fine. Do what you want. And for the record,” she said, her tone having changed rather suddenly, “you’re allowed to talk to me about things other than your mess of a love life with Kim, you know. I may be your winggirl, but that’s not _all_ I am. I’m your best friend, and don’t you forget it.”

Of course – she was right. He cared about her for more than just someone to vent all his Kim-related emotions on. She didn’t even care about romance in the first place! Perhaps he did take her for granted a bit sometimes.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, trying to sound softer. “You’re right. By the way, you were absolutely fantastic in today’s lacrosse match too.”

She grinned. “Thanks. I’m sorry I ignored your advice about not hitting people.”

“It was a good thing you did. It really made the match far more interesting to be a part of.”

“Yeah, I guess it did.”

“Anyway, I suppose I’ll go now. I think I need to take a rest.”

“Alright. Take care of yourself, Max.”

“You too.”

He was at the door before he stopped and turned around.

“Alix… thank you for being there for me. I really mean it. If you ever have the kind of ‘freak out’ I just had, over anything at all, then please don’t hesitate to come to me for support. I’ll always be there for you, I promise.”

She looked slightly taken aback. “Oh… thank you.”

Max just smiled, then turned and left the room. Phew – thank goodness that was sorted out. He really did feel so much better now. Having talked it out, thought it through, he didn’t need to worry anymore, even when he saw Kim again all he had to do was to pretend nothing had happened and that way he wouldn’t get his heart broken and everything would be–

“MAX!”

The sound of Kim’s voice gave him a heart attack. He turned around to see Kim striding down the corridor towards him, smiling brightly. The hairs on his arms stood up on end – on the one hand seeing Kim again was making him feel so inexplicably happy, and on the other hand, he just wanted to run away and never look back.

“Good to see you again!” Kim said, coming to a stop in front of him. “I was just gonna go check up on Alix, she said she lost a tooth during the lacrosse match so it might be a good idea to make sure she’s okay…”

“That’s what I was just doing,” Max said quickly. He had completely forgotten quite how violent the lacrosse match had ended up. Whoops. Maybe he really should have checked that Alix was alright while he was in there.

“Well is she?”

Max blinked. “Is she what?”

“Is she okay?”

Oh – of course. The way Kim was looking at him was distracting him too much.

“She’s fine,” Max said.

“Awesome! I should probably check up on Alya and Nino too, they seemed pretty tired after that match. And you too… you’re okay, right?”

Max just nodded, barely trusting himself to speak. These past several years his crush on Kim had been very on-and-off, but right now seemed to be an “on” period. Very, _very_ on.

“Are you sure? You left pretty quick earlier, you know, after your little ‘present’…”

Kim had an eyebrow raised, grinning slightly. Max felt sure he must be having another heart attack. Why was Kim looking at him like… like _that?_ Like he was so confident and sure of himself, and smooth, and charming, and _frustratingly_ handsome, and–

All of a sudden Kim leaned down and pressed a kiss to Max’s cheek.

“You can have a present too, by the way, for being such an awesome goalie.”

For several seconds Max simply couldn’t reply. His brain had completely frozen up.

Had Kim… actually… kissed his cheek?

Surely… _surely_ , that must have been platonic. Right? Kim couldn’t just… _do_ something like that. Unless it didn’t mean anything. And anyway, upper classes in places like Bourgeois were always kissing their friends on the cheeks. It didn’t mean anything.

It was just… just bromance. Right? That was what the commoners called it. Bromance. Kim had always been so physically affectionate with him. It never meant anything. And it couldn’t mean anything now. Except friendship, of course. He and Kim were best friends, and they always would be. That was what it meant.

“You’re such a great friend,” Max managed to say, his voice sounding almost like a squeak.

“Oh, um… you too…”

Without even daring to look directly at Kim’s face, Max gave him a quick smile and then hurried off in the opposite direction.

Okay, he had managed to sort it out for now at least. Hopefully things wouldn’t be too different, or too awkward, or anything like that. He just needed to save himself from heartbreak.

He was almost at his room before Adam, still in lacrosse gear and looking rather bedraggled, grabbed him by the shirt corner and pulled him into the nearby servant store room. Max could hardly even be surprised – today had already been too surprising for anything else to get to him.

“What do you want?” he asked, trying not to sound too tired.

“Ever since your school holidays started,” Adam said, folding his arms, “I’ve been keeping an eye on you and Prince Kim. All of us servants have, actually. You’d find that we could rival Princess Alya’s spy network with our skills. And at first I just thought it was entertaining that you liked him and persuaded that monster – I mean, that pharaoh – to help you confess. But now I’m sort of personally invested, and also very annoyed.”

Wait… the servants knew? Yikes, how embarrassing…

“Why are you annoyed?” he asked.

“Because now that you royals are my friends, I want you to be happy. But even when the love of your life kisses you on the cheek you’re not gonna tell him the truth! What kind of _coward_ , honestly?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh sorry, I meant what kind of coward, _Your Highness_. Is that better?”

Max frowned. “I’m not a coward. I’m simply waiting for the right time to tell Kim.”

Adam pulled something out of his pocket and put it in Max’s hand. “People give each other stickers on the Cupid Festival, but they’re all the same. Give Prince Kim something a little more special. Like this: a hand-crafted heart that looks like a medal, and is also a badge! I won it off the tailor ages ago but I’ve got no need for it, I have no shortage of admirers to pick from. So you can have it.”

Max took a look at it. It was indeed a little heart-shaped badge, red with golden sparkles. Much more unique than a Cupid sticker, that much was true.

“Thank you, Adam,” Max said. “But um… you won’t tell Kim I like him, right?”

“Pfff, of course not. That’s up to you.”

“Why are you even doing this for me?”

“It’s not a big deal!” Adam said quickly, looking away. “But like… it’s always good to have the prince of your country think highly of you, so that if you ever need a favour, he can do it for you, and maybe you’ll be able to get a better job than the lousy one you currently have…”

Max understood. “I’ll see if you can get a promotion. Seriously, thank you.”

Adam looked up at him, grinning. “No, thank _you_. Now go win Prince Kim’s heart!” With that, he shoved Max back out of the door into the corridor.

Max quickly put the heart badge into his pocket. His imagination was already starting to go crazy – he pictured himself giving it to Kim on the day of the Cupid Festival, Kim picking him up in his arms, maybe kissing his cheek again, maybe _not_ the cheek this time–

He hurried back to his room before anyone could see him smiling stupidly to himself.

 

 

 

The new year was arriving quickly, and with that, the celebrations. The peace conferences were finally ending and many of the royals had already returned home to celebrate the oncoming year in their own countries. Nino, Alya and Alix were going to be leaving in a few days, although considering how soon school was going to start again, it wasn’t going to be long before they saw everyone again.

The final night of the year was much the same as it had been last year – watching the palace fireworks from out on the balconies. Things felt different, though. This time, when Kim stood beside Max looking over the palace gardens, waiting for the fireworks to begin at midnight, everything seemed so much more complicated.

_You’re such a great friend._

That was what Max had said to him, right? And since then, hadn’t acted any different from usual. So then maybe… maybe Kim had been reading into it too much? Maybe Max wasn’t interested in him like that.

_Something small. Not a big deal._

That was how Max had described it, right before kissing him on the cheek. Perhaps Kim really was reading too much into it. He tried not to feel too disappointed.

On the bright side, Kim didn’t feel the need to hesitate before putting an arm around Max and pulling him close to watch, as the new year fireworks started. It just didn’t feel weird at all. A little nerve-wracking, but not weird. And he could be sure that Max didn’t find it weird, either. After all, if he could kiss him on the cheek without it changing anything then surely this was fine too?

“These fireworks really are spectacular, aren’t they?” Max said in awe. Kim looked down at him, seeing the explosions reflected in his glasses, that adorable look of wonder on his face. It was almost too much.

Very quietly, he mumbled, “I love you.”

Max turned to look at him, his expression not having changed at all. “Huh, what was that?”

Kim scrambled to think of something. “I said I love… the view! Yeah… these gardens… the nice fireworks… so pretty…”

Max smiled and leaned on his arm. “I love it too.”

Kim just stayed as still as possible. The truth was, he wasn’t really concentrating on the fireworks very much at all. His thoughts were very much preoccupied with Max.

Well, and one other thing…

There were always firework celebrations back at his home palace on the solar new year too. Would they even be having them this year? Or were any fireworks even allowed to get into the country, considering that the trade routes were still compromised? Would his family even want to celebrate if they were still mourning the untimely death of the king?

“I miss home,” he said. The feelings were starting to overwhelm him. It happened every now and then. It would pass, as it always did, but the homesickness was still unpleasant.

Max didn’t say anything – he just pulled Kim into a hug.

Kim remembered something he had once said to Max… _Home is wherever you are. Because I can always rely on you._

It made him feel a lot better.

“Happy New Year, Max,” he said.

“Happy New Year to you too, Kim.”

_Oh, Max…_

Kim made a promise to himself. At some point this year, he was going to tell Max he loved him. Properly. Probably on the day of the Cupid Festival. It didn’t really matter when, though, as long as he did it. And he would. He would absolutely, 100% do it.


	42. Kim makes out with a pillow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ me: WRITE A MAKEOUT SCENE YOU COWARD  
> also me: but what if... one of the characters... was an inanimate object... wouldn't that just be better...

School began not too long afterwards. There were two important changes that seemed to have happened. The first was that Adrien had not returned. While everyone knew the truth, that he was in Cheng with Marinette’s family, there also seemed to be many more guards around, listening in, and no one dared speak about Adrien very much. Marinette and Chloé both seemed very glum about it, and Nino and Alya soon became much the same way.

The second big change was that the new wing of the school would be finished very soon, with construction almost complete. No one was quite sure what the wing would contain, not even Chloé, and even Alya’s spy network could not find out. (Either that, or she was keeping her discoveries a secret.) Supposedly the wing would open near the end of January, so there were still a few weeks to go before the reveal.

A number of minor changes had taken place too. Alya had indeed got her eyesight checked back in Lahiffe, as Max had suggested, and discovered that she needed glasses. Nino too turned out to need them, so both returned to school wearing their new glasses and shocking the life out of everyone.

Another minor change was that Kim would not stop showing off his new portable phone to everyone, even if they were not interested, and soon Lady Caline threatened to take it away from him if he kept fiddling around with it in class. After that he kept it more to himself – though still boasted about it a lot when outside of lessons.

 

The first weekend back, the weather seemed oddly warm and sunny for a January morning. Clearly Aurore and Mireille both must have been in a very good mood. Kim stood at his window, looking across at the dorms on the other side of the small courtyard. Alix’s dorm was directly opposite his. For the millionth time he wondered if he dared try to throw a paper plane across to her, hoping it wouldn’t land on someone’s head down below. He decided not to do it right now. Anyway, it was so unfair that her dorm had a balcony – just because she was a pharaoh! Why was the Bourgeois Empire always so hung up on class ranks?

He went back inside and lay on his bed, for once not feeling like doing anything. Occasionally it was good to take a day off, to have a break, just laze about. Better to get some rest before all the homework started.

He stared at the ceiling, trying so hard not to let his thoughts go back to Max, like they always did. He was starting to remember how having a crush on a friend was not always fun. Part of him wanted to just run over to Max’s room and go confess his love for him right now. Wouldn’t it be good to finally get it out of the way? But no – he had made up his mind to do it on the Cupid Festival day. He shouldn’t go ruining things now by being impulsive.

Kim tried not to think about what things might be like afterwards. He tried not to think about Max possibly liking him back, hugging him tight, taking him out to dinner, swooning over him, cheering for him during challenges. He tried not to think about Max calling him “sweetheart”, letting him lift him up all the time, saving him from spiders like some kind of superhero.

And he tried very, very hard not to imagine Max cuddling him close, so very close… twirling his fingers through Kim’s floofy hair… closing his eyes… leaning forwards… and kissing him… so tenderly…

Kim just curled up into a ball, burying his face in his knees, blushing like crazy. Oh boy. He was really in the mood for kissing someone right now. Preferably Max.

But he couldn’t just go kiss Max! Not right now, anyway. For starters, he didn’t want to move. The bed was comfy. Of course he could just lean up far enough to grab his phone from the table and send Max a message…

What? No, that was stupid! _Hey Max, Kim here, I’m madly in love with you and wish I could kiss you right now, could you come here please?_ Jeez, that was a terrible idea, even for his standards.

Well… it didn’t _have to_ be Max, did it? For some reason he was just feeling in the same mood as he had been at the winter party and in the broken lift. So weirdly… teenagery. And even if there was no mistletoe here, he could always just message Alix, and…

Actually that was an even worse idea. _Hey Alix, I swear I’m over you and everything, but Max doesn’t know I like him yet so uh… kissing contest again?_ Ew. No.

Well then, what now? He could vaguely remember feeling like this before those times too, at least once in his life, but when…?

The spring holidays!

Oh man. The most cringey, embarrassing times to look back on. Just the thought sent his mind spiralling back into a haze of lovesickness, sports bras, pillows…

Pillows?

He turned over and grabbed one of his pillows, feeling rather stupid. It was just a bit of cloth with some fluff in it. That was all. Nothing special about pillows. How could he have ever thought that making out with one of these was somehow a good substitute for a human?

It wasn’t like he wanted to do that again or anything. His pillow days were over. Long over. He certainly wasn’t thinking about holding this pillow close, feeling the sensations of that precious silk and cotton or whatever material it even was…

Yeah, what even was this pillow made of? Kim wrapped his arms around it and pulled it close – for scientific reasons, obviously. He was researching. Max would be proud.

The thought of Max made him involuntarily squeeze the pillow a little tighter.

Huh… it was so soft, so smooth… the feathers on the inside warming up and coming to life as they absorbed his body heat… almost like a real person–

What the hell was he doing??? He had already decided that his pillow days were over! OVER!! And just to prove it, he would put this pillow down, then put on his shoes and actually go for a run outside, like he was supposed to.

Yeah, he would definitely do that. In a few seconds. He just had to gather up the energy to move first.

Just a few seconds. He would give himself 20 seconds. Yeah. 20 seconds to relax, then he could put this pillow aside.

19…

18…

17…

Plenty of time left. He sank a little further into the pillow, feeling the fabric brush against the side of his face like a loose tendril of hair. Just like a real person.

Only better. Real people had annoying, inconvenient limbs that got in the way. And elbows. At least pillows were just soft. So soft that they could never hurt you.

14…

13…

11…

No wait, 12…

His whole brain was fogging up like a bathroom mirror. Why was he counting again?

Oh yeah… exercise…

How many seconds left now? He had lost count. Probably just best to start from the beginning again then.

20…

Were the pillows here always this soft? They had a slightly different texture to the ones back in Alix’s kingdom. Variety. Just like human people.

17…

18…?

What were numbers again?

The pillow was fiery warm now, just like him. Thermodynamic equilibrium. Yeah, science stuff. Max would be so proud.

Oh boy… _Max_ …

A shudder ran through him. He pulled the pillow a little closer.

25…

89…

He didn’t know what number he was on anymore, he didn’t care. Numbers weren’t real anyway. This pillow though? This pillow was real. So real, he could feel every fibre, every thread, as he clutched it in his arms, his fingers running over the fabric like it was the clothes on someone’s back…

100…

He hadn’t even realized he was already kissing it. Somehow it had just happened. And now nothing else mattered to him, he just pressed his lips onto the spiral pattern on the fabric over and over again, desperately pretending that this was not just some inanimate object, that this was a real person who loved him so much…

His imagination ran wild. The folds of blanket beneath him, those were the person’s arms, holding him tight, feeling their way over his back… the corners of the pillow case, tickling his ear, those were the tiny teeth grazes… the squished mass of feathers against his chest, he curled his arms around, and his legs around too, pulling it closer and closer until his brain was deep fried… and this pillow itself, draped all over him, the lips of this imaginary person kissing him totally, utterly, senseless, driving him so crazy he could barely even remember his name–

DING!

His phone! A message!

He hastily threw the pillow aside, trying to ignore what he had just been doing. And failing. Sitting up, he grabbed his phone and checked the message. It was from Alix.

_Kim, for god’s sake, close your curtains! I just wanted to spend some time on my balcony dropping raw eggs onto people below, NOT see you banging your imaginary pillow sweetheart, thanks._

What?! What what what???!!!!

He turned to see that he had indeed forgotten to close the curtains, and across the gap he could very clearly see Alix standing on her balcony with her middle fingers up, glaring at him.

No way! She had _seen_ him! How embarrassing was that?!

And now he could see her typing something onto her sceptre-phone again, grinning slightly… ugh, what was she going to say now…

_Want to borrow a sports bra to put on your precious pillow babe? Not that pillows even have boobs, but whatever floats your boat I guess ;)_

Seriously? Kim stuck his own middle finger up at her, then snapped the curtains shut. The room immediately seemed so dark.

Anyway, his previous mood was all gone. That was probably a good thing. He could hardly believe it – had he seriously been snogging a pillow again? Why was he such an idiot? Pillows were not real people!!!

Oh, whatever. He needed to go for a run. And he needed to go right now, before that damn pillow seduced him again. Before this turned into a repeat of the spring holidays. He put on his shoes and opened the door, only to walk straight into–

“Oh, hi Max!” he said quickly, feeling every emotion he had just put aside come flooding back into him again. “W-w-w-what’s up?”

“Nothing much, just came to say hello… what about you?”

“Well I definitely was not making out with a pillow so don’t believe anything Alix tells you, okay?”

Max frowned up at him. “Are you alright, Kim?”

“Yeah, haha, don’t worry, I’m bi – I mean – I’m – I’m FINE – fine–”

Oh crap, he was really messing this up, wasn’t he? Ignoring Max entirely, he just ran off down the corridor. He didn’t stop until he reached the thinking fountain, feeling oddly out of breath, sinking down against the side of it and trying to calm his racing heart.

Right. He had just been very obvious about his crush on Max. His brain still hadn’t been working right, thanks to that stupid pillow, and he hadn’t been able to hide it. Putting a hand up to his cheek, his face felt astoundingly warm. He must have been blushing. Had Max noticed? Well, if he had, it was about time, right? It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Kim’s phone began to ring. He took it out of his pocket to see that it was Max who was calling. Half-tempted to just not answer, Kim pushed down his fear and accepted the call.

“Hey Max, sorry about–”

He stopped when he heard Max _laughing_. Why was he laughing? And why, oh why did he have to sound so cute?

“Kim, I just want you to know that I’m not going to judge you for your – uh, indulgence – in pillows. So you don’t have to run away! It’s okay!”

That was how Max had interpreted Kim’s colossal screw-up just now? Oh, thank goodness.

“Yeah, it was just the pillow thing,” Kim muttered. “Sorry. I was just embarrassed.”

“It’s alright. For the record, I may or may not have practised kissing a robot or two in my lifetime. So you’re not alone.”

Kim burst into laughter, unable to help himself. “You, kissing a robot?!”

“As stupid as it sounds, it’s true. A pillow sounds like a better idea, actually. Less metallic.”

“Wow, Max…”

“But a human sounds like the best idea. What’s it like, Kim?”

“Kissing a human? Pretty fun, I guess…”

He could hear Max starting to laugh a little again. “Speaking of which, um, Alya and I had our suspicions about you getting stuck in that lift with Alix, considering what you two are like, so what did happen there?”

“What happened in the lift stays in the lift,” Kim said firmly, trying not to laugh. Max would never guess what happened in that lift, not in a million years. No one would.

“Alright then, though my money’s still on a fist fight. Anyway, are you going to come back to your room? Where even are you?”

“I’m at our thinking fountain, of course.”

Kim had said it without thinking, actually. _Our_ thinking fountain. He could feel himself blushing again. In his mind this fountain was forever linked with Max, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Oh, right! Doing some thinking, are you?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“In that case I won’t disturb you for too much longer. See you later?”

“Yeah, see you.”

Kim hung up. For a few seconds he just stared at the blank screen, having the strange urge to dial Max’s number and speak to him again, just to carry on listening to his voice. But that would be weird. And very, very obvious. Kim had already had a lucky escape today, with Max mistaking his lovesickness for embarrassment over the pillow thing (which, to be fair, was partially true). He couldn’t go messing things up before he got the chance to confess properly on the day of the Cupid Festival.

Hmm… that wasn’t too far away now, come to think of it. Perhaps it was time to start building up his courage.


	43. Would you like to dance?

Marinette’s parents were lovely, they really were. But every time Adrien woke up, all he could think about was Marinette herself. Her eyes, her lips, her precious laugh, the cute way she’d still occasionally stutter over her sentences, her confidence when it came to royal matters, the little freckles on her nose…

He missed her. He missed her so much. It had only been a few weeks, yet it already felt like it had been years. The problem was that he didn’t really know _anyone_ here. It was starting to feel like house arrest again, and that was the last thing he wanted. The reason he was even here in Cheng in the first place was to escape house arrest!

Things might have been better if Marinette’s parents knew who he really was. Every time he heard them call him “Felix” or refer to him as a duke, his heart sank a little further. Lying to them was the worst feeling in the world. But what else was he supposed to do? His father had spies here, no doubt. He couldn’t jeopardize everything that everyone had sacrificed for him by revealing his true identity. Not yet, anyway. Maybe someday.

Over in the Bourgeois Empire, on another continent entirely, several timezones away, Marinette herself was feeling much the same way. It was simply so hard for her to focus without Adrien here. Was this true love? Or was it merely obsession, infatuation? It wasn’t like she could tell the difference. Maybe it didn’t matter. It hurt either way.

At least she wasn’t alone. Alya and Nino missed him too. They were there for her when she needed it, and she tried her best to be there for them too. She wasn’t the only one who cared about Adrien, after all.

Chloé cared about Adrien too…

Alright, maybe Chloé wasn’t so bad all the time. Being at this school seemed to have eroded away some of her haughtiness. She was still hard to speak to, but at least they were on the same side. Keeping Adrien safe was what mattered now. They had to put aside their differences and focus on that.

 

 

When Kim went back to the first duelling club session of the year, he had expected it to feel much lonelier without Adrien there. To his surprise, there were actually two new people who had joined up, and two of the last people he had been expecting.

“Welcoming to the duelling club our newest members, Their Royal Highnesses Princesses Sabrina and Mylène,” the instructor drawled. Most of the nobles hurriedly pushed themselves into bows and curtseys. Kim, however, just laughed and pointed his sword at them.

“You guys?” he said. “Seriously?”

Sabrina unsheathed a sword – not a fencing one, but a proper military one. “My kingdom has long revered the art of jousting, which is a much more challenging sport than simple fencing, so I fully expect to be good at this. And it might help me protect myself against all the rebellions currently happening back home.”

She sounded far colder than Kim had ever heard her – though to be fair, he had only ever really heard her sucking up to Chloé and that was it. He vaguely remembered people at the peace conference mentioning uprisings in Raincomprix, though he hadn’t much paid attention at the time since that all sounded so far away. Jeez, what was even happening in Sabrina’s country that was causing the commoners to revolt against their own rulers?

“And what about you?” he asked Mylène, though a little more gently. He knew she probably didn’t like him much, considering how he used to act towards Ivan. Hopefully she would warm up to him soon.

“I want to be able to protect myself,” she said quietly. “My kingdom isn’t… doing so well right now.”

Wait, what was Mylène’s kingdom called again? It was on the tip of his tongue but he just couldn’t remember! From his tutorial sessions with Max he remembered that it was a little mountainous country wedged directly between the vast empires of Bourgeois and Agreste, and neither paid much attention to it… Would it be rude to ask, considering he’d been in her class for over a year now and still didn’t know? Maybe he’d just have to go ask Max later.

Yes… that would be a good excuse to go hang out with Max again. Studying, of course. Geography lessons. Totally nothing to do with wanting to stare at Max’s precious face again, or listen to his smooth, silky voice, talking to him for hours on end, in close proximity…

He shook himself out of it. Now was not the time to be daydreaming about Max! He’d end up losing these duels for sure, otherwise, and it would be so humiliating to be defeated by a couple of newbies.

“I can show you guys the ropes,” he bragged. “Now that Adrien’s gone, I’m the best fencer here.”

The nobles started giggling. Kim turned to them, expecting them to be in awe of his amazing skills, only to see that their giggles seemed rather more… insulting. What?! Did they not believe him or something?! Okay, so he didn’t _always_ win, but he was still pretty good, right?

“Not for long,” Sabrina said, flipping her hair out of her face. “I’ve already had plenty of practice with my father. Are you ready for a battle, Kim?”

Pffff, did she really think she was better than him? Some medieval princess whose country didn’t even have, like, trains?

“Heck yeah, I’m ready,” he said. “Are you sure you wanna be duelling in that long dress thing? Won’t that get in the way?”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Alright, I’m just saying…”

The nobles, still giggling as always, stepped out of the way to let Sabrina and Kim have the space in the centre of the room. Mylène gave Sabrina a high five, then stepped back to watch. The instructor had what looked like the tiniest of smiles on his usually sour face.

“Um, are you gonna fight with that sword?” Kim asked. “Like… usually we don’t use actual swords here, just fencing ones…”

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” Sabrina replied coolly. Huh, was she really this confident when Chloé wasn’t around? Or was this a side-effect of the fact that Chloé had been turning into someone a lot nicer lately?

“Fine then. Let’s do this.”

The match that followed was a surprisingly tough one. Kim hadn’t expected Sabrina to be anywhere near that good at duelling. For starters, how did she even _move_ in such a stiff-looking dress? And she was so nimble, too. Kim was used to facing opponents who were much more direct in their actions. Well, to be precise, he was more used to facing _Adrien_. He never really duelled anyone else here. The nobles mostly stuck to each other, not wanting to have to fight any of the royals.

When he finally lost the match, sitting on the ground with Sabrina’s sword at his throat, for several seconds he just sat there in surprise. As if from a distance, he watched as Sabrina high fived Mylène again, cheered on by the nobles as she did so. Then she held out her hand to help Kim up.

“That was a very good match. You’re a great opponent! I’m glad I’ve finally found someone it’ll actually be a challenge to duel against.”

A challenge, huh? That seemed to snap Kim’s brain back into action. He shook her hand, but then let go before standing up by himself without any help.

“That was fun,” he said. “But I am so gonna beat you someday.”

She looked taken aback. “I didn’t think you’d take your loss so well. But I suppose Chloé isn’t the only one who’s changed recently.”

“Pfff, I changed ages ago,” Kim said, running a hand through his hair, hoping those nobles were listening. He missed the days when they’d admire him as opposed to secretly laugh at him. “Did you know that I apologized to Ivan for being a jerk? See, I’m a cool person now. I swear I am.”

“It’s true,” Mylène said. “Ivan did tell me Kim apologized to him.”

“Exactly!”

Sabrina smiled, a sudden, unexpected one that looked somewhat out of place on her. “I’m sure _Prince Max_ must be very pleased about your change of heart…”

What – Max??? Well of course, but why had she brought him up? How much did she know?!

“He thinks I’m awesome, obviously,” Kim said quickly, hoping he wasn’t blushing. Thinking about Max always seemed to do that to him these days.

“Sabrina, can you teach me how to duel?” Mylène asked.

“Sure I can! We’ll get you a practice sword first – come on…”

Kim watched as the two of them went off to begin their practice. Did Sabrina… _know?_ Kim was sure that the only person who knew about his crush on Max was Alix, and that was because he had told her! How could she have figured it out? Was he that obvious? To be fair, maybe he really was. And Sabrina was one of the quiet ones, wasn’t she? If anyone would have noticed, it was her. But did she have to bring it up in front of all those nobles?!

Well, whatever. If things went well at the Cupid Festival, then everyone would soon know. Not too long left now…

 

 

School itself was mostly boring over the next few weeks. The only interesting thing that happened was when the new wing was revealed, construction having just about finished. It turned out to be new dormitories for some of the nobles, and most excitingly of all, a new gym. It had all the newest tech imported from abroad – weights, spinning cycles, treadmills, everything! Kim spent the days leading up to the grand opening standing at the window and staring, wishing he could be allowed in already. A place like that would be _heaven_ for him!

A grand party was being held for the opening. It was optional, and the worst part was that Max had decided not to go. Kim tried not to feel too disappointed at the prospect of not being able to dance with him – whatever. It was fine. He could just go on his own.

The party had been announced as a formal occasion, so most people were wearing their best clothes, but the atmosphere certainly felt a lot more like the winter party than anything else. The only thing missing was the mistletoe. Nino had even snuck in and mixed in some of his own records at the music table and bribed the band to play those instead of their own songs, so everything sounded far more modern than usual. It might even have been fun, if Max had been there.

“I miss Adrien.”

Kim turned aside to see his old friend Marinette standing beside him, looking disheartened. He hadn’t even seen her smile at all over the past few weeks.

“He’d want you to have a good time,” Kim suggested, not wanting to say more about Adrien in case any of the guards were listening in. No one had been dropping any hints about Adrien’s whereabouts at all recently, especially with all the wanted posters for him everywhere. It was almost like he was an outlaw or something.

Marinette finally smiled, though just a little. “I’m glad Nino changed the music.”

“Me too. This electric guitar stuff is way better than anything else.”

“Oh, is that what this instrument is? I thought it sounded like some kind of strange violin!”

“Electric guitars are so cool, you have to see them! When I was on holiday in Alix’s kingdom she let me have a go at one of them once, it was awesome.”

“So, an electric guitar… is that just a normal guitar, except with an electric socket attached to make it sound cooler?”

“Pretty much. And they’re so cool. Rock music has ruined me forever, I can’t listen to anything else anymore.”

Marinette chuckled a little. “I have a feeling I’m going to end up the same way.” She looked around. “Is Max not here?”

Kim felt his heart sinking again. “Nah, he didn’t want to come. Neither did Alix. It’s just me.”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Her smile grew a little wider. “I was wondering if you were going to ask Max for a dance.”

“W-what?!”

Kim looked away, feeling his face heating up.

“I’m sure he would have said yes if he was here. I was expecting you to ask him, actually.”

“What? Why?” He let out a nervous laugh. “That’s so – um – random, like, why would I just _ask_ Max, I mean…”

Oh god, he was making this worse. Marinette’s smile had transformed into a full-on grin.

“I’ve known you for a long time, Kim.”

“S-so?”

“So I know you very well indeed.”

She knew – _she knew!_ How did she know?! How was Kim so obvious that everyone could tell, these days? Did that mean that Max knew too? Oh drat – please say Max didn’t know, that would be so embarrassing!

“Marinette, would you like to dance?” he asked hastily.

“You’re changing the subject.”

“Yeah but would you like to dance? Come on! It’ll be fun!” He held out his hand, remembering all the times the two of them had danced together as little kids. Part of him wanted those days back – nothing to worry about, just having a fun time with a good friend, with no pressure or responsibilities to get in the way.

Marinette shook her head. “Sorry, Kim. That’s very nice of you. But I just don’t feel like dancing right now. Maybe you should ask someone else?”

“Max isn’t here.”

“It doesn’t have to be Max! Seriously, you can’t get your mind off that boy, can you?”

Kim looked away again, wanting to kick himself. It was no wonder Marinette had noticed. He really was incredibly obvious, wasn’t he? What a disaster. He hadn’t been nearly this awful back when he still liked Chloé.

Hmm… Chloé…

She was standing at the corner of the dancefloor, talking to Lila. Those two were a couple, right? Then why weren’t they dancing?

“Chloé!” Kim called, running over to her. “Wanna dance?”

For a few seconds she looked at him with that familiar haughty expression that he was used to, though she quickly softened up. “Why?”

“You’re my friend now, right? It’ll be fun!”

“I don’t know how to dance to music like this, though.”

“Neither do I. We’ll just wing it.”

Lila giggled a little and nudged Chloé in the arm. “Go for it, babe. I promise I won’t laugh.”

Chloé rolled her eyes and smiled a little too. “Fine then. But for the record, I am much better at dancing to classical music than rock n roll, and the jive is a rather difficult dance to perform in an outfit like this, and–”

“Whatever!”

Kim grabbed her hand and pulled her onto the dancefloor, laughing. The music was so fast and loud, with a strong beat and electric instruments – so different from everything they usually played at the school events. Nino had really done a good job with his music selection. No one else around here had any idea how to dance to this either, so did it really matter?

Anyway, this was the most fun Kim had ever had at a dance in his life. Even back as a little kid with Marinette, any dances they attempted would be stately ones. But now? He swung Chloé around wildly, her unrestrained laughter egging him on, spinning her round in circles over and over and dipping her almost right to the ground. Thank goodness she wasn’t wearing a wig tonight!

By the time the song ended Kim was out of breath and dizzy, hardly able to breath from laughing so much. Chloé seemed to be the same way.

“That was actually really fun!” she said, before turning to Lila and yelling, “Come here darling, it’s your turn now!”

Kim watched as Chloé dragged her sweetheart onto the dancefloor and began jiving with her even more enthusiastically, with Lila blushing and giggling and whooping. He chuckled to himself, then turned around to see–

Max?

He was standing there, staring at Kim with wide eyes, a small smile on his face.

“Hi Kim,” he said.

“Max! I, uh, didn’t realize you were gonna be here!” Kim quickly smoothed down the front of his shirt and ran a hand through his hair, hoping it didn’t look too messy and stupid. It probably did. Ack, did he look alright? Would Max even care about that?

“I changed my mind.”

“Cool! So… um…”

“Kim, would you like to dance?”

For a few seconds Kim just stood there, gawking like an idiot. He was _so_ not prepared for this.

But he wanted this. Oh yes, he wanted it. While he had been dancing with Chloé, at least half of his thoughts had been that he wanted to do this with _Max_. Spin him around, hold him in his arms, hands clasped tightly together…

“It’s okay if you’re too tired,” Max continued. “Your dancing just now was very energetic.”

“Um… you were watching that?”

Max nodded. “It looked fun.”

Fun. It had been fun. And Max wanted to dance with him.

“I’m not that tired,” Kim said, trying very hard to sound casual. He leaned a hand against the wall next to him. “I’m an athlete, I don’t tire out easily.”

“Exactly what I thought.”

“So like… if you wanna dance with me, then sure, we like… can totally dance together… that’s cool…”

He ran another hand through his hair, knowing it was a mess. He hadn’t put enough hair gel in it. But he hadn’t realized Max was even going to be here! But then again, Max had known him for so long, he probably didn’t care about Kim’s hair at all. Max had nursed him through the flu, he’d seen Kim at his worst. Why should his hair even matter? Wh–

Max suddenly grabbed Kim’s hand and pulled him over to the dancefloor.

“I assume you’re much better at this kind of dance than I am, considering you and Chloé just now, so take the lead!”

Oh boy. Was this really happening?

Kim took Max’s other hand in his own. He glanced at the music table to see Nino giving him a thumbs up. Dang, did Nino know too? Who didn’t know at this point?

Oh well. He had wanted to dance with Max, and now was his chance. He had better make the most of it.

 

 

Somewhere on the opposite side of the hall, Alix surreptitiously tugged at Alya’s sleeve. “Alyaaaaa. I have to talk to you about something.”

Alya turned to look at her, frowning. “Alix? What are you doing here? You usually avoid these social event things like the plague.”

“I know. But I just had an idea and I can’t be bothered to wait, so I’m here. That’s why I’m in my pyjamas.”

Alya looked down at her and chuckled. “You’re way dorkier than I realized.”

“Shush. Anyway, um, you know how the Cupid Festival is coming up? And it’s overrated and awful and stupid and terrible and annoying?”

“I know it, yes.”

“Well I sorta need your help with something. I know two people who are totally in love with each other but the stupid idiots just won’t fricking get together already, so on the Cupid Festival I need to find a way to force them to get together or it’ll drive me mad, but I don’t know the first thing about stupid sappy lovey-dovey nonsense, so–”

“It’s Kim and Max, isn’t it?”

“WHAT? Haha, nooooo, of course it’s not them, it… okay, yeah, it’s them.”

Alya winked. “Spymaster Alya is never wrong! So, you want me to help you set up something romantic for them on the Cupid Festival?”

“Yeah. Because I genuinely have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Of course you don’t. But you’re not just getting something for nothing, you know. If you want my help, you’re going to have to… hmm… tell me a secret.”

Alix rolled her eyes. “Fine. I’m scared of needles. Is that good enough for you?”

“Nope.”

“I steal food all the time.”

“I could have told you that myself.”

“I once cried because I saw a baby rabbit and it was really adorable.”

“That’s hilarious, but still not good enough.”

“How is that not good enough?” Alix snapped. “What else am I meant to tell you? I once poured a load of chilli sauce into the Queen of Anglia’s sandwich and she still has no idea who did it! I didn’t know what The Talk was until like a month ago and I threw up when I found out! I’m aromantic! Anything else?”

Alya smiled rather ominously. “I want to know what happened when you and Kim got stuck in that lift.”

What? No. That was going too far.

“What happened in the lift stays in the lift,” she replied.

“Well then, I’m sorry but I’m not helping you.”

“Oh come on! It was nothing bad, I swear. But me and Kim made a pact not to tell anyone. It’s not like anyone would believe us anyway.”

“Did you have a fist fight? Or another, uh, kissing contest?”

“I’m not telling you. And for the record, you’ll _never_ guess. Trust me.”

Alya folded her arms. “Well then, trust me when I say I am not going to help you out.”

“Fine. I don’t need your help anyway. I’ll just get everyone else in our class to help me instead, since they’ll be nice enough to do that.”

“Psssh, good luck.”

Ouch. Did Alya really have that little faith in her? Alix could be friendly, of course she could! Surely the others would agree to help her. Right?

She thought about going to the others, asking them all for help, individually. They’d probably just back away from her slowly, fearful for their lives. Drat. They wouldn’t want to help her either. But she’d already told Alya she would get their help, and she was not going to back down from that!

Well, in that case, between now and the Cupid Festival she was going to have to start being nice. Very nice indeed.

She cracked her knuckles. Time for Operation: Pharaoh Alix Is The Nicest Person In The Class. And Operation: Kimax. That too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, if anyone can actually guess what happened in that lift then I'm just gonna assume you're psychic because seriously, you will never guess. And you'll have to wait for the final chapter to find out >:D


	44. Treadmill from hell

The new gym opened early the very next morning. Kim had made a pact to be the first one there, but he arrived only to look through the glass to see someone familiar already inside, little black pigtails tied up in red ribbons, tapping buttons on the panel of a treadmill–

“MARINETTE!” he yelled, bursting through the door.

“Kim?” She looked up at him, surprised, then smiled and waved. “I’m so glad you’re here too!”

He strode up to her and put his hands on his hips. “How dare you get here before me?!”

Her smile fell immediately. “I couldn’t sleep, and I needed some way to get my thoughts away from… well…”

Oh, of course. She was probably missing Adrien again.

“You were thinking about your _pet cat_ , were you?” he asked. That was the code that people seemed to have been using for Adrien recently.

“Yeah, I was.” She looked around a little, but there were no guards nearby to overhear. She leaned in closer and whispered, “I think I might send him a letter later.”

“But won’t they check the mail?”

“I could just do it secretly. Write a letter to my parents asking them to give my regards to my pet cat Felix, something like that, I’m sure they’d understand what I mean…”

“Yeah, maybe that’ll work then…”

“Anyway!” she said more loudly now, standing back. “Ready for some exercise?”

Kim nodded. “Of course I am! Remember when we were little kids and we used to go for runs together?”

Marinette giggled. “How could I forget? Those were so fun. Our caretakers were always losing us in the woods and getting so stressed out.”

“And you were always getting so annoyed that I could run faster than you. Which is still true, by the way.”

Marinette stepped up onto the treadmill’s conveyer belt and pressed a few buttons. It started moving slowly, and she walked along on it. “Are you sure? Because I’ve been doing a lot of training these recent holidays, while you and Max were busy having loosely defined lacrosse matches and slow-dancing with each other at the Peace Ball.”

Kim felt the heat creeping up his face. “Did Alya tell you about that?”

“Yep. She and Nino told me about lots of things. Like you getting a new nickname thanks to a cheeky servant from Max’s kingdom. Emperor Palpatine, was it?”

“Everyone else has got tired of calling me that, so don’t you start now!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t!” Marinette increased the speed on the treadmill slightly. “And I was told in lots of detail about the lacrosse match too. It sounded fun!”

“Yeah, it was.” Kim hopped onto a nearby treadmill himself and pressed a few of the buttons, not really knowing how to work these machines. It started up with a jolt, knocking him off balance slightly, though he quickly righted himself and began walking. “I’m so good at lacrosse now.”

“Indeed. I’m sure Max thinks so, anyway.”

Kim didn’t say anything. He looked away and hoped Marinette would assume that his red face was from the exercise – despite the fact that the treadmill was still only going at walking pace and he didn’t know how to change it.

“Apparently you also did some responsible royalty things, like going to International Alliance meetings and making allies with some of the most powerful countries in the world.”

“Yeah, I totally did that,” Kim said, running a hand through his hair and ignoring that most of the International Alliance members seemed to be have been treating him like some lost little kid that they were taking pity on, rather than a future leader who needed their assistance.

“Good! Hopefully with their help, things will be sorted out soon. And then… Adrien…”

She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. If the Agreste Empire lost power somehow, or Emperor Gabriel calmed down somewhat, then Adrien might be able to return to school freely without fear of house arrest. And Kim would be able to go home too.

“How do you make this thing go faster?” Kim asked, changing the subject. He pressed a few buttons but all it did was increase the incline of the slope slightly.

“Here,” Marinette said, leaning over and showing him.

“Ah, thanks…”

He pressed the button again and again until the machine was going fast enough for him to need to jog. There, that was better!

“I also heard about you getting stuck in that lift with Alix for several hours,” Marinette continued. “Even Alya says she doesn’t know exactly what happened there.”

“It’s a secret,” Kim said, trying not to laugh. “No one will ever guess. But you’re welcome to try.”

“Hmm… fist fight?”

“Nope.”

“A, um, repeat of the winter party incident?”

“Still nope.”

“Did you tell her about your crush on Max then?”

“Pfffff, she already knew about that, I told her ages ago…”

“So you DO have a crush on Max!” Marinette yelled, far too loud.

“What?! I – NO, I mean… I never said anything about… I…”

“You just admitted it!”

“No I didn’t!” Kim said quickly, silently cursing himself.

“I knew it, I _knew_ it! I figured it out even quicker than Alya did–”

“Well don’t tell anyone!” Kim quickly looked around but luckily there still wasn’t anyone else in here. Of course he had guessed that Marinette already knew, but at least she hadn’t properly said anything about it. Until now, anyway.

“I won’t tell a soul, don’t worry,” she said, laughing a little, “though to be honest, it’s obvious enough that I don’t need to tell anyone.”

Kim just didn’t say anything. If that was the case, then did Max himself know? Or would he be the last person to figure it out? And why was that always the case with people Kim had crushes on?!

Marinette turned her treadmill up faster, to the point where she was running at a slightly higher speed than Kim. He could have sworn she had the tiniest of smirks on her face. The kind that she would do on purpose a lot when they were much younger, when she won tennis matches against him in the scorching summer heat, or pulled off a particularly successful prank. He remembered how annoyingly charming he had always found it, though he had never quite fallen for her in a way other than friendship. Then again, he was fairly certain that Chloé’s haughty smirk at a certain birthday banquet several years ago was what managed to capture his heart back then, and he knew for a fact that Alix’s competitive smirks were at least 90% of the reason he had ever been interested in her.

Huh… maybe he had a type when it came to girls?

But for now, there was no girl who he was into. Imagining Max cheering him on, he put on his own smirk and turned the treadmill up so that he was running faster than Marinette again.

“I can still run faster,” he muttered.

Rather than saying anything, she just raised her eyebrows and increased the speed of her treadmill again, overtaking him. Well, Kim certainly wasn’t having that. He turned his speed up by several notches. She turned hers up even more, looking like she was starting to tire out a little. Good! Kim carried on increasing his speed, wondering how fast these machines could even go.

They carried on trying to outdo each other for the next few minutes, Marinette now huffing and puffing as she tried her best to keep up despite her much shorter strides. Kim couldn’t help chuckling a little. There was no way she would ever be able to beat him, no matter what! Alright, she was very determined, he could admit that much. But it was no real challenge.

“Just give up and slow down before you fall over,” Kim said, grinning, tiring out himself somewhat now – though surely nowhere near as much as Marinette.

“Never!” she managed to gasp out, before turning up the speed to the point where she was practically sprinting.

“Hah, you’ll never beat me!” Kim taunted, increasing his speed well beyond hers, knowing she would never be able to catch up. “I’m the fastest runner for my age group in my entire kingdom, and probably faster than anyone at this school, I bet I could even outrun a _panther_ , that’s how fast I–”

His foot slipped. The next thing he knew, he had been flung backwards off the treadmill and was lying on the floor.

“Kim! Are you okay?”

Marinette pressed a button that slowed her treadmill to a stop, then jumped off and ran over to him, still sounding so tired out that she could hardly speak. Kim sat up, rubbing the back of his head. It didn’t even hurt that much – he was just _embarrassed_.

“I’m fine, don’t worry,” he said, standing back up and trying to look casual. “I’ve decided I don’t like treadmills.”

Marinette managed to let out a little laugh through her heavy breaths. “Because you fell off?”

“No, psshhh, I just prefer running outdoors on actual real life ground. Yeah. And I’m still faster than you. And don’t even think about telling anyone what just happened.”

“Of course I won’t.”

“Thanks, Mari.”

Maybe it was a better idea to try out some of the other equipment instead, and perhaps this time not accidentally get into a competition with Marinette. Thank goodness Alix wasn’t here, since she was probably the one person who would make Kim feel even more competitive than that. And thank goodness Max wasn’t here either – what if he had seen Kim fall off the treadmill like some kind of idiot? That would just be the worst thing ever. But Max hadn’t wanted to come to the gym, preferring to get ahead with some homework in peace during these early hours of the day. Phew.

Kim turned around to see someone tapping on the glass outside the gym, holding up a water bottle–

Not just anyone! _Max!_

Kim quickly wheeled back around, holding his hand up to the side of his face to shield it from view. “Marinette… please tell me that’s not Max standing outside…”

“That’s Max,” Marinette sighed.

“Do you think he saw me just now?”

She shrugged. “Ask him.”

He heard the door of the gym opening, followed by Max’s voice.

“Kim? You forgot your water bottle! I don’t want you to get dehydrated, so I brought it to you – make sure your fluid intake is adequate, alright? Oh hello Marinette, good to see you too…”

Kim took a deep breath, then went over to Max to take the water bottle. He was still in his pyjamas, his springy hair somewhat scruffy, a sleepy grin on his face. It was so oddly… cute. And when Max stifled a yawn, and pushed a few fingers under his glasses to rub the sleep dust out of his scrunched-up eyes, Kim had to hold back a gasp. How was Max just so… so effortlessly… _perfect?_

“I’m assuming you aren’t injured?” Max asked.

“Ahahaha, w-why would I be injured?” Kim asked, taking a quick sip from the water bottle.

“It looked like you had a bit of an accident with the treadmill.”

“You saw that?” Kim was sure he was blushing, so he looked away and hoped the bright yellow lights in here would make it less noticeable. He would fight that stupid treadmill if he could.

Max put a hand on Kim’s shoulder. “It didn’t look very serious, and such accidents are very common with treadmills, so I’m not worried. But if you notice any unusual pain or differences in movement then make sure you go to the medical centre and get it checked up, just in case.”

How was Max such a sweet person? It was _unfair_ , that was what it was. Unfair that it made Kim’s heart beat so much faster than any exercise ever could.

“I will, thanks Max,” he said. “And thanks for bringing me my water bottle.”

“It’s no problem. Keep up the exercise, both of you – you’re doing an amazing job! Anyway, I’ve got work to be getting back to, so I’ll leave you now…”

Flashing them another precious smile, Max waved and walked off out of the room again. Kim immediately put down the water bottle and pulled the top of his shirt up so far it was covering his entire face, feeling too flustered to function. Max was just so _cute_ , so sweet, so wonderful, so amazing – Kim was going to go crazy if he didn’t do something about it soon!!!

“You are a mess,” he heard Marinette saying.

“Like you were with Adrien?” he mumbled, still hiding his face in his shirt.

“I was probably worse, I couldn’t even talk to Adrien. But Kim – I want you to remember something.”

He felt her pulling the shirt back down from his face to reveal her looking at him somewhat more seriously than before.

“Max is your best friend,” she said. “Don’t let this crush on him change that. Yeah, you were embarrassed about falling off a treadmill in front of him, I would be the same with Adrien! But would you have been so embarrassed about it _before_ you fell in love with Max? Or would you have not minded, since he’s your best friend and you know he won’t judge you for things like that?”

She was right. Or at least… kind of.

“I think it’s just when other people are around,” he admitted. “Not that I’m annoyed that you were here, or anything! It’s just… when I’m with him, and it’s just the two of us, it’s so comforting, and I don’t feel like an idiot. But when there are other people around, that’s when I get… kinda… self-conscious, I guess…”

He hated saying this kind of thing, being introspective, all of that stuff. But this was Marinette. He’d known her longer than anyone else, even longer than Max. If there was anyone he could tell absolutely anything, it was her. (Except for what happened in that lift, of course.)

“Fair enough,” she said. “Hey, are you going to give him a Cupid sticker on the Cupid Festival day?”

He looked at her sudden bright, excited smile. Everyone seemed so keen to get the two of them together. It was so nice to know how supportive people were.

“Probably,” he said, shrugging. “I’ll do something, at least. I have to tell him.”

“Yes, you so do! I’m sure it’ll go really well! I’m rooting for you!”

Kim gave the top of her hair a quick ruffle. “Thanks, Mari. You’re the best. Well, except at sports, because I’m the best, and I’m gonna prove it. What’s next?”

Marinette looked around. “We could go for the spinning cycles next, but don’t fall off this time!”

Kim laughed. “I won’t, I promise you!”

The two of them headed over to the other side of the room and continued their gym session, as a few more student began to trickle in now that it was slightly later in the morning.

 

 

 

14th February was not too far away now. Not far away at all. The month of February had already started, and time was running out to make preparations in order to ensure that Operation: Kimax would be a success. Alix had sort of been procrastinating on it. She knew she had to do it without Alya’s help, but who else to ask? Sure, she had other friends in the class, but still. It was pretty obvious that most of these “friends” found her a bit intimidating, despite her best efforts not to be.

Oh well, there wasn’t enough time left to wait any longer. She had to get going _now_.

“Mylène!” she called from the library entrance, waving, earning her glares and shushes from the rest of the students in here who were trying to work – at least until they saw that it was _Pharaoh Alix_ , and they quickly looked back down without complaining further.

Mylène looked up and saw her, returning the wave along with a sweet smile. Thank goodness Mylène was nice and friendly. She would definitely help.

Alix went over and sat beside her, taking her pet snake off her neck and putting it down on the table to wander around freely. Mylène wasn’t afraid of it anymore, it was fine. “I need your help with something.”

“Of course!” Mylène said. “What is it?”

Now how to put this? Technically speaking, she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about Kim and Max both being stupidly head-over-heels for each other. She really hadn’t thought this through.

“I need to set someone up on the day of the Cupid Festival,” she said.

“Kim and Max?”

“Uhhh… maybe. Anyway, I don’t know what to do. I’m guessing they’ll go to that one fountain in the school grounds, you know the one, so I was thinking… I might decorate it or something? Is that a sufficiently romantic thing to do?”

“Sounds good to me!”

“Okay… so how do I do that? Put flower petals in it or something? I don’t even know where to get those from, I can’t just go picking them off flowers in the school grounds, or Mendeleiev’s gonna give me a detention…”

Mylène began writing something on a scrap of paper. “I have some ideas, but it’s going to involve getting help from some of the others too for things that aren’t my area of expertise.”

“I guess I’ll try,” Alix said, feeling her heart sinking at the prospect of having to talk to the others too. Hopefully those “diplomacy” lessons she’d been forced to attend when younger would help her now. “Oh, and by the way, how’s your kingdom doing? At the conferences in the holidays I heard there were landslides and stuff, so…”

“Not great,” Mylène said, still writing. “I wanted to stay back and help with the relief efforts, but my father told me I’d be better off at school. But things are improving.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“And thank you for asking. You and Ivan are the only ones who did.”

Really? Well… maybe most of the others didn’t know. Mylène’s kingdom was small and comparatively insignificant with many other countries.

“Here you go,” Mylène said, giving the piece of paper to Alix. “Some suggestions about who to go to for help with setting up these people who are probably Kim and Max.”

Alix looked down at the list.

 _-Rose and Juleka: which flowers/decorations to get_  
_-Chloé and Sabrina: nearby flower vendors_  
_-Nath: sketch out best arrangements_  
_-Ivan: tall enough to reach top of fountain_  
_-Nino: distract Kim and Max_  
_-Marinette: keep Aurore and Mireille in a good mood!_

“Thanks,” she said, trying not to sound as annoyed as she felt about having to speak to all these people.

“Not a problem! Let me know if you need any more help.”

“I will.”

Alix picked up the snake and took the piece of paper with her as she left the library. Right. Rose and Juleka were first on the list – they would know what sort of flowers to use. Where would they be? Hmm, it was a Saturday morning, right? Rose worked in the gardens. She would be there. Maybe with Juleka, too. It didn’t matter, as long as one of them was around.

Sure enough, going into the school grounds, Alix spotted Rose and Juleka giggling and spilling bits of water over each other with their watering cans. It was cold out here, with their breaths swirling into mist, and the plants were mostly barren, but they didn’t care. Those two were the most romantic kids in the class. If anyone would be able to get Kim and Max together, it was those two. But then again, that wasn’t their job. It was Alix’s.

“Uh… hi,” she said, feeling awkward about interrupting them.

“Hi!” Rose said, smiling so very cheerfully at her. “What’s up?”

“I need your help with something. I’m decorating the fountain for my friends on the Cupid Festival and I don’t know which flowers and stuff to use.”

“Use black roses,” Juleka said. “They look cool. And they also symbolize death, which is even cooler.”

“Um…”

“No death? Okay, sorry. Use red roses then. They symbolize love.”

“Red roses,” Alix repeated, wishing she had a pen to write it down with. She turned to her snake. “You got that? Red roses.”

The snake nodded. Juleka stepped forwards and gave it a little stroke on the hood. “I hear this little guy won a lacrosse match in the holidays. That is so cool.”

“Actually, we lost the lacrosse match.”

“Even cooler. I want a lacrosse snake too now.”

“Carnations!” Rose said. “Those symbolize love too, which would be perfect for the Cupid Festival! Red and white carnations especially. I learnt that in my flower arrangement class back home once. Oh Juleka, I should take you there sometime, you’d love it!”

“Flowers are rad,” Juleka said.

“They are, they really are! Oh, and don’t forget red chrysanthemums. Those mean love too. Lots of flowers mean love!”

Love, sure… but what kind of love? This was why Alix always hated the Cupid Festival. Didn’t friendship count as love too? Because this was the one day of the year when apparently, it didn’t. Or was inferior to romance somehow. No one ever gave any value to the yellow friendship stickers – no, if it wasn’t a red, heart-shaped _Cupid_ sticker then no one cared. As if friendship meant nothing.

“I don’t think they’ll care what the flowers mean as long as they look nice,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound bitter.

“In that case the roses and carnations would be the best,” Rose said. “And I’m not just suggesting the roses because of my name, I promise!”

“Thanks,” Alix said. “That’s all, I guess. Gotta go do some other stuff.”

“Already? Alright, well have fun! And I hope our suggestions were helpful!”

“Bye snake,” Juleka said, blowing a kiss at the little reptile.

Alix took another look at the piece of paper as she left those two alone to carry on flirting or whatever they were doing.

_-Chloé and Sabrina: nearby flower vendors_

Right, apparently these two would know exactly where to buy flowers. The market in the merchant square had grown so much over the past year (except for the quarantine period, of course) that it would be impossible for her to find what she was looking for quickly, especially since she never really went there and wouldn’t know her way around. At least Chloé and Sabrina, who were constantly shopping, would know where to get things from. And she had managed to make fairly good friends with Chloé while they were both protecting Adrien several months ago. It wouldn’t be too bad.

It took quite a while of searching and interrogating random passing nobles before she managed to track them down. Chloé was getting her hair done at the school saloon while Sabrina sat in the corner with a magazine.

“Hello, Your Majesty, would you like an appointment?” one of the staff members said as soon as she came in.

“No thanks,” Alix replied, feeling rather protective of her messy pink hair all of a sudden. “I just wanted to talk to Chloé.”

“Did I hear someone say my name?” Chloé called, turning around in her chair. “Alix! Lovely to see you! What are you doing here? Finally decided to turn that dreadful hair into something respectable?”

Ignoring that entirely, she said, “Where in the merchant square can I buy flowers?”

“Flowers? Oh, I know the _best_ place! Why, were you thinking of giving some to someone during the Cupid Festival? Because no offence darling, but something like that would seem very fake coming from a person like you.”

“I’m not giving flowers to anyone, ew. This is for something else. So where do I get them?”

“I’m a little busy right now but Sabrina could show you on the map.”

“Cool, thanks.”

Alix went over to where Sabrina was sitting. She had already got a map of the school out of her bag and was opening it up.

“It’s here in the north-east quadrant of the merchant square,” Sabrina said, pointing at an area of the map. “You can’t miss it once you’re nearby. If you want flowers for the Cupid Festival, I would suggest going there the previous day so that they’re not out-of-stock. Don’t worry about reserving an order in advance – you’re the highest ranked student at this school, so they won’t refuse you service.”

“Thank you.”

“If I may ask – what do you need flowers for if you’re not going to give them to anyone?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chloé said. “She’s making some sort of plan to help Kim and Max get together. You should have seen those two at the dance the other night. They’re certainly going to be a couple sooner or later.”

“I’m just gonna leave now,” Alix said quickly. How was everyone figuring it out? Maybe Kim and Max really were just that obvious. But then why didn’t they notice themselves?!

Anyway, the flowers could be ordered later once she was sure exactly how many she needed. Next up on the list: Prince Nathaniel.

Drat. She had never even spoken to him once in her life, she was sure. He went out of his way to avoid people. Would he even answer if she knocked on his door?

Well, she had to at least try. She left the saloon, went back to the dorms, then knocked on the door to his room. Surprisingly enough, he did open it.

“I need your help with something,” she said.

“Um.. okay… come in…”

He wasn’t even looking at her, he was looking at the snake and seeming slightly terrified. Was he afraid of snakes? So many people here seemed to be. In any case, she entered the room to see that it was even messier than her own, with scrunched up pieces of paper and piles of laundry everywhere.

“You know that fountain in the school grounds?” she said. “I have to decorate it for the Cupid Festival, don’t ask. The decorations are probably gonna be flowers and stuff. Mylène suggested I ask you to sketch out some possible arrangements, because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He looked a little more at ease. “What kind of flowers?”

Alix tried to remember. “Red roses… white and red carnations… yeah, those.”

“Those flowers symbolize love. And that fountain is the one that Kim and Max always hang out at. So you’re trying to set them up.”

His voice was quiet, but his tone and words so matter-of-fact. He almost looked slightly smug.

“Whether that’s true or not is none of your business,” she said.

“So it’s true. Okay. I’ll sketch something.”

He opened up a sketchbook lying on the desk and grabbed a pencil out of many that were lying around, then he sat there and began drawing. It was honestly a marvel that he could see through his hair, considering it covered most of his face, but he really was a very good artist. Even the tiniest of lines, the quickest of sketches, managed to convey senses of details and shadows. Everyone always said that his kingdom produced the greatest artists and sculptors. But Alix had always assumed that was just a stereotype or something. Apparently in Nath’s case, it was actually true.

“You’re nervous,” he said, quiet as ever.

“What?”

“Nervous.” He was still drawing, not having even lifted his head to look at her. “Because if your friends get together, they might stop paying attention to you.”

It was like a sudden punch to the gut.

“I said it’s none of your business,” she snapped.

“Sorry, just an observation. Though for the record, I’m sure they wouldn’t stop hanging out with you just because they got together.”

For a few seconds she held her tongue, refusing to say anything, before her emotions were too strong and she gave way.

“What if they do?” she said.

“They wouldn’t. They care about you.”

Her fists were already clenched without her realizing. “Platonically. Which seems to matter to people less. And these days all they ever talk to me about is each other.”

“How does this look?” Nath said suddenly, holding up the sketchbook. There was a ring of roses around the top of the fountain, and the carnations were in bunches lower down.

“Looks nice,” Alix said.

“Good. I’ll colour it too, and then you can keep it for reference.”

“Thanks.”

“Anyway,” Nath continued, pulling a box of imported markers out of a drawer, “I get the feeling you’re worried about your friends abandoning you. I know what it’s like to not be good at making friends, or being a loner. But Kim and Max won’t abandon you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just a gut feeling.”

Gut feelings were certainly not good enough to go on. Anyway, Nath didn’t even know anything about her. He was just some random kid in their class. None of this even mattered to him – he was probably just trying to amuse himself.

“Have a little faith in your friends,” he said. “They care about you. I can tell.”

“Why are you even talking to me about all this?”

He shrugged. “On the off-chance that I’m wrong, you’ll probably want a back-up friend to actually be there for you.”

“You… want to be my friend?”

Nath just nodded, carrying on the colouring.

“Jeez, and all this time I thought you were shy…”

“Being shy and being quiet isn’t the same thing. Though, uh, yeah. I am shy.” He lowered his head a little further towards the desk, practically hunched over his sketchbook.

“Well sure you can be my friend. But you’ve got to stop… you know… doing that thing.”

“What thing?”

How could she describe it? _Somehow figuring out my inner thoughts and fears and talking about them as if they’re nothing?_

“Stop acting like a therapist or something,” she said finally.

“Why? I want to help.”

“Well you _can’t_ help, okay?! Just trust me. Cupid Festival is the worst. _People_ are the worst. Once they get a significant other they throw everyone else away. I see it happen all the time, and I don’t want it to happen to me, because I can hardly ever make friends anyway and I can’t lose the ones I have. But I will! And I know I will! And I’ll be helping them do it, because they’re my _friends_ , and I want them to be happy!”

“Not everyone’s like that though, you don’t know if–”

“But I _do_ know!”

For quite a while now Alix had been refusing to think about the stupid, cursed, other timelines – especially since she was the only one of them still left at school, so it didn’t matter anyway. But now she just couldn’t help it.

“I know because it’s happened before,” she said. “Kind of. Other timelines. You know, that power thing Fu told me about, you must have heard about it by now. Because in the other timelines, in those stupid spring holidays last year, when Kim got together with m– uh, _someone_ , he was such an obsessive hopeless romantic he didn’t care about anything or anyone else, just casting everything else aside like it didn’t even matter! And Max actually likes him back, so if they get together now they’ll just – no one else will matter to them–”

“Spring holidays, you say?” Nath’s tone hadn’t even changed at all. “That was a long time ago.”

“Less than a year, actually.”

“But so much has happened since then. Quarantine, the stuff with Adrien, Kim’s grandfather dying, all those things. If you’d have asked me last year during the spring holidays, I would have said that someone like Kim was _not ready_ for a relationship. Even with Max. But now? He’s grown up a fair amount. Everything is different.”

Was that true? Was Kim more sensible now? And would that make a difference?

Well… maybe it would. _Hopefully_ it would.

“So you think this time he’s going to be more sensible about things,” she said.

“Yes, exactly.”

“Okay. I’m… I’m gonna believe you. So you’d better not be wrong.”

Through his hair, she saw him smile. “I’m sure I won’t be.” Then he quickly sat up and tore the page out of the sketchbook, handing it to her. “Done!”

She took a look at it. How had he done something so detailed so fast? It really was very good.

“This is awesome,” she said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll see you in class, I guess.”

“Yep. See you. Oh wait – one last thing! What happened in that lift?”

Seriously, did everyone know about the lift thing? And why did they care?

“I’m not telling you,” she said.

“Alright, but quick question. Was it anything stupid?”

“Surprisingly, no.”

Nath smiled again. “In that case, Kim definitely has grown up a lot since last year. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Huh, I guess you’re right.” Alix couldn’t help but smile a little too. Nath was way smarter than she had realized. Maybe being so quiet had given him ample opportunity to observe everyone until he knew them all really well. Having him as a friend would probably actually be a good idea.

And best of all, he wasn’t afraid of her. The shyest, quietest classmate, the one who never spoke to anyone at all – and he _wasn’t afraid of her_. Thank goodness.

Leaving the room, she took another look at Mylène’s list.

 _-Ivan: tall enough to reach top of fountain_  
_-Nino: distract Kim and Max_  
_-Marinette: keep Aurore and Mireille in a good mood!_

Right. Those three would have to be sorted out on the day before the Cupid Festival, 13th February, as well as actually going and buying the flowers. She still had a while. At least for today, she had done a good job. Phew! Operation: Kimax was going well.


	45. Operation: Kimax

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this chapter in April, believe it or not! Just tweaked it a bit here and there. I'm sorry it took almost 160k words to get this far... oh no wait, no I'm not ;)

It was late in the evening on 13th February, and the clock was ticking.

“There’s no way I can go stash the flowers in Ivan’s room without Kim and Max spotting me, so you have to distract them,” Alix said.

“Got it,” Nino replied, nodding. “I’ll go do that now.”

“And you, Marinette…” Alix gestured at the rain out of the window. “If it keeps raining, the whole plan fails. You need to keep Aurore and Mireille in a good mood so they use their weather powers to make it sunny.”

“I baked some cookies earlier, maybe I’ll give them some!” Marinette said.

“Good. I’ll let you know how it goes. Now go off and do your thing!”

Marinette and Nino ran off in opposite directions. Alix picked up the wagon full of flowers beside her and started dragging it towards the exit of the merchant square. Once she reached the entrance to the dorms she waited for bit, just in case Nino had been delayed and Kim and Max were still around. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she took the wagon in and knocked on the door to Ivan’s room.

“Oh good, you brought the flowers!” Ivan said. “Mylène told me all about your plan and I can’t wait to help!”

Huh, usually Ivan always seemed overly grumpy and quiet, but for once he was smiling brightly and looking cheerful. No wonder Mylène liked him.

“Thanks,” Alix said. “We’ll hide these flowers in here until the rain stops, then go to the fountain and display them.”

Ivan pulled the wagon into the room and started having a sort through it. “Roses… some other pretty flowers… I don’t know much about flowers, really, but they smell so nice!”

“I don’t know much about flowers either,” Alix said. “I had to ask Rose and Juleka what to do, and then ask Chloé and Sabrina where to buy them.”

“So is it true you’re setting up Kim and Max?”

“…Maybe.”

Was there much point in keeping it a secret if everyone already knew? But then again, they were trusting her not to tell anyone. She had to at least try to act like the plan was still some big mystery, even if everyone already knew what she was up to.

“Looks like the rain is stopping,” Ivan said, looking out of the window. “I’m not sure since it’s quite dark out there.”

“Oh good, Marinette must be doing a good job already. Well – no point wasting time. Let’s go.”

She opened the door and had a quick check. Kim and Max were nowhere in sight. Good. Picking up the wagon handle, she pulled it out of the room and Ivan followed.

 

It was cold and dark outside, though the rain had stopped entirely by now. The fountain was deserted. Alix put the wagon down and started pulling out the flowers, having to squint to see with so little light.

“What if Kim and Max don’t even come here tomorrow?” Ivan asked.

“They will. I know they will. I told Kim myself to take Max here. Uh, not that this is anything to do with Kim and Max, of course…”

Holding a bunch of flowers in one hand, she pulled Nath’s drawing out of her pocket with her other hand and gave it to the snake to hold up so she could see it.

“Okay, so the roses go at the top and the carnations go lower down. I can’t reach up there so I’ll arrange the carnations here and you just make the roses look nice, okay?”

Ivan nodded. He picked up some of the roses and then stood on the edge of the fountain walls to start putting them up near the top. Meanwhile Alix worked on trying to make the carnations look somewhat nice. She really had no idea what she was doing. How did people find flower arrangement a fun hobby to do in their spare time?

It took quite a while, but finally the fountain looked somewhat nice. By that time they had spent long enough in the dark that their eyes were getting accustomed to it and they could see it a lot better.

“Yeah, this looks like the drawing,” Alix said, taking the drawing back and putting it in her pocket. “Thanks, Ivan. Good work.”

“No problem! Let me know if you ever need help with anything else!”

He held up his hand for a high five, and she happily did so. His hand was seriously so big – why was everyone else always so giant compared to her? It was just unfair.

“So are you and Mylène doing anything tomorrow?” she asked him as they walked back towards the dorms.

“Mylène says she has a surprise for me,” Ivan said, his voice sounding much softer than usual. “I can’t wait to find out what it is. I wish I could just go to her room now and go and see her, but she told me to stay out until whatever present she’s working on is finished…”

“Oh, nice.”

“And what are you doing now? Going to go give Kim and Max some advice or something?”

“Pffffff, no,” Alix lied. “I was just… well, I guess I could go see if Kim’s changed his opinion on pillow fights yet…”

Ivan’s face lit up. “Pillow fights?”

“Yeah. I always wanted to pillow fight that idiot, but he refuses because pillows are too _special_ to him, of course. Don’t ask.”

“Then you can always pillow fight me!”

She tried not to laugh. “Are you sure? I’m not gonna hold back. You will die from blunt force trauma caused by me with a pillow.”

“Yes, that sounds great!”

Wait, he wasn’t kidding? She looked up at him to see him smiling just as cheerfully as he had been before. The usual grumpiness was nowhere to be seen.

“Alright then,” she said, a grin spreading over her face. “Let’s have a pillow battle. Class giant against the class midget.”

“I’ll race you back to my dorm!”

He laughed and ran off before she could even say anything else. For a few seconds she was too surprised to move – was Ivan really _like this_ underneath that tough exterior? A sweet, goofy kid who liked to have fun just like everyone else?

Hmm. New friend alert. This pillow fight was going to be fun.

 

 

 

 

Somewhere not too far away, Kim traipsed back into his own room and just flopped down on the bed. Why had Nino wanted to show him and Max the graffiti corner around the side of the building? Kim already knew about that. Everyone did. Even the teachers did, and they never bothered to get rid of it. Something was fishy, but he couldn’t work out what.

Never mind. He was tired, and tomorrow was a big day. Time for some sleep.

 

The hours passed too slow and too fast all at once. Tossing and turning, Kim just couldn’t sleep. All he could think about was Max – how was he going to react tomorrow? What would happen? Would things go well? Or would it all somehow turn into a complete disaster, just like everything else in Kim’s life?

Morning soon arrived, and despite his lack of sleep he didn’t feel tired at all. He grabbed his phone and sent a very important message to Alix.

_Just stay in your room and don’t interfere okay, I’m doing this by myself!_

He hadn’t expected to get a reply at this early hour, but apparently she was already awake.

_You can do it!!!_

Reading her words of support gave him the motivation he needed. Today was the day he was going to confess his love to Max. Today! No more hesitating, no more putting it off, no more waiting. This was the Cupid Festival, the perfect day to do such a thing. The past several months had been leading up to this moment.

He jumped to his feet, ready to go, when he heard a knock at the door. That had better not be Alix, he’d literally _just_ told her to stay in her room…

Opening the door, he saw Max standing there in front of him. His heart immediately started beating a thousand times faster – no, he wasn’t ready yet! Not yet!

But he may as well get this over with. Before he lost the opportunity forever.

“Max! I have to tell you something–”

“Wait,” Max said. He was standing with his hands behind his back, seemingly hiding something. “Kim, please will you do something for me?”

“Of course!”

“Close your eyes and don’t open them for 100 seconds. Okay?”

“Okay…”

Kim shut his eyes and began counting. Almost straightaway he felt Max pin something on the front of his shirt and then heard his footsteps running away, but he kept his eyes closed and continued counting.

Opening them at 100, he looked down at his shirt to see that Max had stuck a little red sticker there.

No wait… not a sticker. A badge. It was red, heart-shaped, and had golden sparkles on it.

A red heart…

_Just like a Cupid sticker._

Cupid stickers. Those were what people gave to their sweethearts or crushes on the day of the Cupid Festival. And Max…

Max had just given one to _him._

And not just any ordinary Cupid sticker either. A special one. A unique one. One that almost looked like some kind of medal.

A romantic gift.

Too many thoughts were whizzing through his brain at once for him to even begin to sort them out. Without wasting a second, Kim tore off down the corridor, not caring if any teachers saw him or he got into trouble. It didn’t matter to him that he was still in his pyjamas, or that he hadn’t even done his hair nicely yet. He didn’t stop running until he had reached the thinking fountain, the place where he knew Max would be.

Sure enough, Max was sitting on the ground beside the fountain, curled up slightly. He didn’t even look at Kim, he just mumbled, “I thought you should know.”

Kim’s brain was still whirling so fast he could barely comprehend what was happening. Max had given him a Cupid gift, an actual real Cupid present. There was only one explanation – and yet it still seemed to impossible to take in.

“Max? Are you… are you _in love with me?”_

Max turned away. “Well I just… yes. Yes, I am. But really, I just thought I should tell you, and it’s… it’s not a big deal, and I love being your friend so p-please don’t worry… I just… thought maybe if I tell you then I’ll finally get over it… and I j-just want you to know that I think y-you’re amazing… and…”

He couldn’t go on, not now that his voice was cracking and there were tears running down his cheeks.

So it was true? This whole time, Max really had loved Kim back?

Seeing Max sitting there crying, it was just too much! Max being sad was too heartbreaking to bear. Without even stopping to think, Kim bent down and scooped him up into his arms, hugging him tight. All his nerves, all his fear, it had vanished. The only thing that mattered right now was Max.

“I love you too,” Kim said, surprised to find himself on the verge of tears too. Max was just looking up at him in shock, so he took a Cupid sticker out of his pocket and stuck it to the front of Max’s shirt.

“You… you like me?” Max still sounded shocked. He took his glasses off and wiped a few tears away from his eyes.

Kim nodded, feeling a great rush of adrenaline – not fear, but freedom. Love. _Finally._ He didn’t have to hide it any longer.

“I’ve kinda had a crush on you for a while now,” he said, grinning a little.

Max smiled a little too, before something between a sob and hiccup, followed by burying his face into Kim’s shoulder to cry a little more. Kim just ruffled his hair with one hand and pulled him a little closer with the other. He could feel a tear or two running down his own cheek too now.

“Oh Max…” He sighed, not even sure where to begin. There was so much he had been planning to say, but now it felt like words were unnecessary. “I guess my little Cupid sticker present for you is kinda lame compared with what you got me…”

He could feel Max giggling into his shoulder a little. “I got it from Adam, he told me to give it to you… he wanted us to get together…”

“I think everyone did.”

“True…”

Feeling almost dizzy, Kim crouched down to sit on the ground, still holding Max in his arms. His heart felt like it was going to burst.

“I was gonna tell you I liked you today, I can’t believe you beat me to it,” he muttered. “So I guess I’ll beat you to the important question: Max, do you um… wanna be my sweetheart?”

He could feel himself blushing now, the ridiculous lovey-dovey feelings getting the better of him. All he wanted to do was hold Max in his arms forever, never having to think about anything or anyone else ever again. Fu had told him at the oracle session that he would not be getting a girlfriend within the next year. Well… he had certainly been right about that.

Max pulled his tear-stained face away from Kim’s shirt, looking up at him with such a warm, lovestruck expression that Kim’s mouth fell open slightly in surprise. Max had never before looked at him with such obvious affection. It was beautiful.

“Kim, I would love to!”

Wow. So he finally had a sweetheart. An actual, real sweetheart. And not just anyone, but Prince Max! The greatest person in the world. Feeling overwhelmed, Kim just wrapped both arms around him and squeezed him tight. Everything just felt so perfect.

They must have sat there together for several minutes at least, the only sounds breaking the silence being their occasional laughter and the flowing fountain water. It was so peaceful, so wonderful, so… _satisfying_. Kim was not sure exactly when he had fallen for Max, and perhaps it didn’t matter, but it was long enough ago that finally knowing the truth that his love was reciprocated was the most heavenly feeling in the world.

Eventually he loosened his grip slightly, wondering if he was accidentally strangling his new sweetheart a bit. He leaned back and wiped a little tear off Max’s face with his thumb. Every movement, every tiny bit of physical contact – it was electric. Kim was sure the hairs on his arm must be standing up on end, and he didn’t even care.

“You’re really cute, you know that?” he mumbled.

“If I’m that cute then surely you won’t object to me taking you out for a picnic brunch today,” Max replied, a rather attractive smirk on his face all of a sudden. “It’s too cold out here but Master Fu doesn’t stay at school the whole year round so his room is free.”

Kim couldn’t even say anything for a few seconds. Max had just _asked him on a date_ , and he was internally freaking out so much that he could barely move.

“I’ll take your stunned silence as a yes,” Max said, that smirk still there. Why were smirks so hot? Even on guys? _Especially_ on Max?

Kim finally managed to say, “Yeah, that would be… amazing…”

“And I can’t wait to tell Alix about all this. She was helping me out, you know. She knew the whole time.”

That seemed to shock Kim’s brain into action.

“She KNEW?” he yelped. “She knew the whole time and she didn’t tell me?!”

“I made her swear not to.”

“But so did I! She was being winggirl for me, and I told her not to tell you, and…”

They both looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, before bursting into laughter.

“Oh, poor Alix…” Max managed to stop laughing first, now resting his head against Kim’s chest. “She must have been so annoyed at both of us.”

Kim scratched the back of his head, feeling like an idiot. “No wonder she was always telling me not to bother waiting for the Cupid Festival. She knew you’d say yes the whole time.”

“She really doesn’t like the Cupid Festival anyway. People rarely give friendship any amount of real importance on this day, and to her it matters a lot more than other things.”

“Don’t worry, Super Kim is on the case,” Kim said, trying to put on the most fabulous smirk he could and flexing his arm muscles slightly. Hearing Max’s surprised little intake of breath gave him a confidence boost like no other. “I already know exactly how to make it up to her.”

“Really? Because I had some ideas too. I know I’ve sort of been taking her for granted recently, so…”

“Yeah, same. But don’t worry. I have a plan. Here’s what we can do…”

 

 

 

 

Over in her dorm, Alix and her snake sat waiting. She kept checking her sceptre-phone, but still no message from either Kim or Max. How long were they going to take? She wanted to leave her room already!

But then again, did she? Today was the Cupid Festival, so maybe it would be better to avoid everyone.

There was a knock at her door. She opened it to see Kim there, grinning at her and holding something behind his back. Well, if he was grinning then that was a good sign, right?

“How did things go with–”

“Shush!” he said, putting a hand over her mouth before she could finish. “Before I tell you anything I have to do something, so go sit down and listen and be quiet. And don’t laugh.”

Don’t laugh? Why was all of that sounding… familiar?

She sat on her desk chair and waited, slightly apprehensive. What on earth was this idiot up to now?

Kim pulled what looked like a guitar out from behind him – wait. It wasn’t quite a guitar. And it looked _very_ familiar. Could that be…?

It was. It was that instrument he had played her a song with last year on this day.

Oh jeez… he was going to play another song for her, wasn’t he? Yikes.

Sure enough, he began playing – but this time it sounded different. The song was so much more upbeat and catchy, as opposed to whatever heartfelt ballad he had been playing last year. To be fair, last year while listening she had indeed started to suspect that he had a crush on her, though she immediately dismissed that idea when he had told her it was a “generic friendship song”, or whatever he had said. If he had played this song instead, she would have just had no idea. This sounded almost like a pop song.

“Ta-da!” Kim said once he was done, a cheerful smile on his face. “You can applaud now!”

She clapped a few times, not really sure what to think.

“And this time it was _actually_ a friendship song, I promise,” Kim continued, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and thrusting it into her hands. “I made a translation and everything, look.”

She took a quick read of the paper. Sure enough, the lyrics were so… well… _sweet_. So platonic. And incredibly heartwarming. There were little yellow hearts drawn all around the edges of the page too.

Yellow… the colour of friendship.

She looked back up at him, about to say something, when he suddenly swept her fringe aside and stuck a little friendship sticker on her forehead.

“Happy Cupid Festival, Alix! I love you. No romo.”

No… romo…? That was the most hilarious phrase she had ever heard. About to say so, she stopped abruptly when she realized that her eyes were filling up with tears.

Her whole life, she had been _waiting_ for someone to tell her they loved her on the day of the Cupid Festival. But not the way that everyone else always said it. She had wanted a _friend_ to say it to her. And now it had really happened. Finally. Someone who didn’t love her any less, just because they weren’t _in_ love with her. A true best friend.

She just stood up on the chair and hugged Kim, not trusting herself to say a word. He chuckled and ruffled her hair the way he always did. That really did not help stop the tears, couldn’t he just not do that, and go do something stupid and idiotic instead so she didn’t have to cry…

“Are you gonna say anything?” he asked.

There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but they were all way too cheesy. Instead she settled for muttering, “No romo is the best phrase ever and I’m gonna use it all the time.”

“It’s awesome, right? Max came up with that one.”

Max! Of course!

She let go of Kim and quickly wiped the tears out of her eyes. “How did things go with Max, then?”

Kim just carried on smiling, his expression not having changed at all. “Why don’t I take you to see him and you can ask him yourself?”

“Sure, but hang on a second.” She opened the cupboard and took out a bag. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“You’ll see.”

“Alright…”

She followed him through the school corridors towards the oracle room. Kim explained along the way that Fu wasn’t actually at school most of the year, so his room was usually empty and available for use.

They arrived to see Max in the room, with a picnic blanket laid across the floor and a few plates of food on top of it. Max immediately rushed forwards to hug Alix and stick a friendship sticker on the side of her snake.

“Happy Cupid Festival!” he said brightly. “I’m sorry I’ve been taking you for granted so much recently, I want you to know that you’re my best friend and I care about you no matter what. And it’s thanks to your help that Kim and I actually did get together.”

So they were together now? Oh thank god, _finally_. More than anything else she was just relieved at this point. Those two had completely obliterated her willingness to be anyone’s winggirl ever again, thanks to how ridiculous they were.

“So are you two having a picnic date?” she asked.

“Actually,” Max said, “all three of us are. A friendship-date for you, and a Cupid-date for us.”

“We didn’t want to leave you out!” Kim added. “We promise not to be too sappy until you leave.”

“You’re very important to us.”

“You totally deserve to be appreciated on this day too.”

They were looking at her expectantly. Aware that her eyes were burning again, she put her hand into the bag and pulled out a few flowers.

“Um… these are for you. Just take them. Yellow roses symbolize friendship. And I know these are totally lame compared to this picnic you guys invited me to, but… you’re both… really… cool… so…”

Okay, she was crying a little. Forget it. She held out the flowers and looked away, not bothering to say anything else.

“Thank you,” Max said as he took half the flowers, with Kim taking the other half. “I didn’t know you knew flower language.”

“I don’t. I just learnt a bit so I could decorate that fountain place of yours properly for today.”

They stared at her. “…What?”

“The thinking fountain, as you guys call it? You must have been wondering where all those flowers came from. Well yeah, I did that. With some help.”

They glanced at each other nervously.

“Uh… I didn’t really notice,” Kim admitted.

“We were rather distracted,” Max added. “But I’m sure your decorations were lovely.”

“You didn’t notice? At all?”

They shook their heads.

After all that effort she’d gone to…

They really hadn’t noticed?

That was… just…

“That’s hilarious,” she whispered, before bursting into laughter. What idiots.

 

 

The picnic date really didn’t feel much different from any other time when they all hung out, and that was probably for the best. The snake had tied itself in a knot around Kim and Max’s arms, binding them together for a little while. Seriously – that snake must have been able to understand French perfectly well. There was no other explanation.

Eventually Alix and the snake left, Alix saying that now Kim and Max were free to be as “mushy” as they wanted in peace. Kim looked over at Max, wondering if he dared ask for a kiss, or would it perhaps be considered rushing things? He didn’t mind just _being_ with Max, anyway. Simply being near him felt nice.

“I’m assuming you’re going to want to show off your new sweetheart to everyone who will listen,” Max said, stretching and then sitting back against the wall. “If so, feel free.”

“Really?” Kim certainly had wanted to do that, but he wasn’t sure if Max would like it or not.

“Of course. You know I like it when you compliment me, say nice things about me, all of that.”

Kim chuckled. “So when I had the flu and I was gushing at you loads about how cool you were, you must have been having the time of your life!”

“I certainly was!”

“How long have you liked me for, anyway?”

Max stopped to think for a few seconds. “Must be a few years now.”

“YEARS?! And you didn’t do anything about it?”

“You already had your own crushes. I was supporting those instead.”

Kim leaned forwards and pulled Max into a hug. He did that often, sure, but it felt different now. He was hugging his _sweetheart_. It felt good.

“You’re too good for me,” he said softly.

“Aww, Kim…”

“I know I’m totally super hot, but apart from that, what do you even see in me?”

“So many things!” Max said, pulling away enough to look at him in earnest. “You’re always trying your hardest at everything, and being supportive of me no matter what, and always striving to improve yourself! Not to mention how inspiring your energy and enthusiasm is, and how _endearing_ it is to watch you jumping headfirst into everything you do, always putting in all your effort…”

Hearing Max say all this, it was like floating on a cloud. And he never wanted to come down.

“And how long have you liked me for?” Max asked, his gushing spree at an end.

“I don’t even know,” Kim admitted. “I noticed it just after the winter party, but it must have started before that. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

Max chuckled. “So you already liked me when I um… after that lacrosse match… kissed you on the cheek.”

“Oh yeah, that! I was so shocked I couldn’t move for like five whole minutes after that.”

“And so later on, when you did the same thing to me in return, you must have been flirting…” Max whacked himself on the forehead. “How did I manage to write that off as friendship?”

“It’s okay, I managed to convince myself it was all friendship too,” Kim admitted. “Though, to be fair, I did guess that you might have been into me. It was, uh, the thing during the last spring holidays. The… you know.”

He gestured vaguely at his chest, feeling too flustered to actually say it now. Max understood though, his eyes growing wide all of a sudden, before the smile returned to his face.

“Please don’t think your amazing athletic figure is the only reason I like you,” he said. “That’s just a bonus.”

“Don’t worry, I get it. And please don’t think I only like you ‘cause you’re smart. I like you for a whole lot more than that. You make _me_ feel smart when you’re with me. And you’re super nice. And always there for me. And really, really cute. And…”

Kim broke off, blushing furiously. Complimenting Max usually came easily to him. However, complimenting Max in an obviously romantic sense was still quite new to him.

“When did you tell Alix that you liked me?” he asked instead, changing the subject.

“The morning after the winter party,” Max said.

“But wait… that’s when I told her too! She was actually there when I realized it in the first place!”

Max laughed again, such a sweet little laugh, like wind chimes in the breeze. “That must have been so frustrating for her.”

“And I think she’s wanted us to get together for a lot longer than that,” Kim continued, remembering something else. “Remember that one time when we were supposed to be doing work after the quarantine, and I won an arm wrestle against her for like the first time? Well later on she asked me if it was because of you, and uh… now that I think about it… she was definitely implying that she thought I had a crush on you… and I guess I did, without realizing…”

“You mean I can help you win arm wrestles?” Max asked. “I should go to duelling club to support you in that case. You’ll win all your matches!”

“It’s true though! When you’re around, it’s like I’m way smarter! I even started considering that maybe you had superpowers or something, being able to boost my focus and concentration and make me really clever, or something like that.”

Max took Kim’s hand in his own and held it tight. “I think that’s just called being in love.”

Kim was sure his entire face must be bright red. He fiddled with Max’s fingers – they were oddly small compared with his own. “I still think you have superpowers though…”

“Spider-removal superpowers?”

“Yeah… something like that.”

“Well, if there’s a superpower that you have, it must be the superpower of being supportive. I don’t think you’ve ever said anything mean to me for as long as we’ve known each other.”

“You’re a nerd,” Kim said, grinning.

“That’s not mean!”

“Okay, okay… you’re… a… cool person. Ugh, I can’t do this.”

Max laughed. “Exactly!”

Oh, he was just so cute. Kim’s brain was starting to spin in circles from being so close to Max for so long. There was no other feeling in the world quite like it.

“By the way,” Max said, “I have another guess about what happened in that lift. Did you spend the entire time boring Alix to death by gushing about how amazing I am?”

Hmm… not too bad.

“Not for the entire time,” Kim said. “I did talk about you for a while, yeah. But that’s not the _main_ thing that happened, the _cool_ thing.”

“And you’re not going to tell me?”

“Nope. It was the awesomest thing ever and I so totally would tell you, but me and Alix made a blood pact to never tell anyone unless they managed to guess. That was how awesome it was.”

“A blood pact?! What on earth is that?”

“Um, we weren’t sure actually but the idea sounded cool, so uh… let’s just say, a pinkie-promise mixed with a papercut, except using one of the tips of the snake’s fangs instead of paper. Therefore the pinkie-promise is now forever binding.”

Max shook his head in disbelief. “Well, it’s a good thing queen cobras don’t actually store their venom in their fangs…”

“Of course they don’t, you’ve taught me that before. I remember.”

“You do?” Max looked up at him with that adorable, lovestruck expression again. He really didn’t seem to be hiding his crush at all now. “Oh Kim, you always take everything I say to heart… you’re ever so sweet…”

Alright, maybe Max wasn’t the only one looking lovestruck. Kim himself wasn’t bothering to hide his admiration anymore, and it must have been showing on his face. Things were just going so _well_ today. Like out of a dream, or a fairy tale. Max had only been his sweetheart for a few hours at this point but those few hours had already been precious. What were things going to be like in the future?

He squeezed Max’s fingers tight, smiling encouragingly, not really sure what to say now. Kisses were on his mind all of a sudden, and he wasn’t sure if he should go there yet or not. He’d never actually kissed someone while in a relationship with them. Well, he had never even had a relationship in the first place. Everything was a bit new for him. And he didn’t have much to go off, either – Max was a boy! Not that his heart noticed the difference.

“Do you think we should clear up the picnic now?” Max asked, bringing a halt to Kim’s train of thought.

“Sure,” he replied, ignoring his heart sinking a little. There would be time for all the _romantic_ stuff later. Plenty of time.

They stood up and helped each other pack away all the leftover food and fold up the blanket, along with putting the friendship flowers in a bag to store for now.

“Thank you so much for organizing this picnic, it was awesome,” Kim said once they were done. He did the usual thing – hugged Max tightly enough to lift him off the ground for a few seconds. This time, though, he was sure Max was hugging him back tighter than normal. _Much_ tighter than normal. He had to remind himself to breathe.

He put Max down and dropped his arms, but Max didn’t seem to quite let go of him. He was looking rather flustered all of a sudden, his face tinged red with a nervous smile on it.

“Kim?”

“Yeah? You alright?”

Max nodded. “I just… um… it’s a bit silly maybe. But…” He took a deep breath. “I have never actually kissed anyone before. And, well, I suppose I’m curious. And I’ve kind of wanted to kiss you for quite a while now. So, if it’s alright… can I kiss you?”

Kim just stared for several seconds. He was hyperaware of Max’s arms resting on his shoulders, his face just a few centimetres away. Time itself seemed to be slowing down.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding slightly. He’d kissed people before, right? He knew what he was doing…

But no, he didn’t. He just _didn’t_. Everything felt so different this time. He was so head-over-heels for Max, he just didn’t even know where to start. This was nothing like an awkward mistletoe kiss, or a quick surprise one, or a meaningless make-out session at a winter party. This was a _proper kiss_.

Max stepped up onto Kim’s feet and put his arms around his neck. He seemed to be shaking slightly – was he nervous? He must be. Kim was too. He put his arms around that fluffy green jacket of Max’s and pulled him a little closer, trying not to feel too overwhelmed. It seemed like time was slowing down even more around them, pulling the universe closer and closer to complete tranquillity.

There was that soothing feeling again, that calming influence that Max seemed to have on him. Recently Kim had always been in too much of a crush-fuelled adrenaline state to notice it, but it was there, alright. And now it was washing over him, as he moved his face closer and closer to Max’s, it was filling every single atom of him, as he tilted his head aside slightly and half-closed his eyes, forgetting that anything or anyone else existed…

The kiss did not last particularly long, but Kim realized at the end of it that he and Max were holding onto each other much tighter than they had been at the start. He tried to clear his head – all he could think about was that kiss.

It had been so different – how had that happened? Like nothing he had ever experienced before. Time had been going so slow, every second felt like a thousand years. It was so… bewitching? Was that a word? It was the only thing that could even come close to describing it.

Max seemed to have had his eyes closed, and now he opened them. Huh – his glasses hadn’t got in the way at all. Kim had forgotten about that completely. And now Max was staring at him, his expression unreadable. Kim rested his forehead against his.

“So uh… how was that?”

For a few seconds Max just looked down, smiling, before saying, “I liked it.”

“Oh, thank goodness.”

“But for the record, even if I hadn’t liked it, I would still like you.”

“That’s a relief to know.”

“And what about you? How did you find it?”

Kim grinned. “I think I absorbed some of your smartness. It was awesome.”

His phone suddenly buzzed in his pocket. Still holding onto Max with one hand, he checked the message with the other. It was from Alix, of course.

_Have you two kissed yet? If not I’m gonna push your faces together, honestly._

“Look at this message,” Kim laughed, showing Max. “She wanted me to kiss you at the Peace Ball, too.”

“Oh, the Peace Ball,” Max said, chuckling slightly. “I was very much thinking about kissing you there, but I sort of lost my courage…”

“Aw, it’s okay.” Kim turned their half-hug into a full hug. “I lost my courage that night too. But hey – it’s all worked out now.”

“Yes. Indeed it has.”

“You really mean the world to me, you know? I love you so much.”

Kim had told Max he loved him plenty of times before, of course he had. It felt so much more special now, though. Now that Max knew what he truly meant.

“I love you too,” Max replied. “Happy Cupid Festival, Kim.”

“Happy Cupid Festival, Max.”


	46. The price of chocolate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna try and update this on a sensible basis from now on rather than "three days in a row and then ignore it for a month" or whatever I've been doing, so anyway, you get a new chapter every Sunday. (If I can keep that up.) Also I don't apologize for following up the fluffiest chapter with one of the angstiest ones, have fun! :D

The next morning, before going to class, Max opened a drawer in his room and pulled out the little heart-shaped box that he had been ignoring for a long time now. Opening it, he took out the brooch and pinned it to the front of his shirt. This brooch… he hadn’t even looked at it for a whole year now. He’d just thrown it straight into the drawer and told himself to forget about any chances with Kim ever. He could never have imagined how different things would be this year.

Looking at himself in the mirror, he couldn’t hold back a smile. Alright, so the brooch didn’t really suit him. It was light blue, sparkly, heart-shaped, and unlike anything he ever wore. But hey – this brooch was from _Kim_. His sweetheart.

Thinking of the word “sweetheart” made him smile even more. He buried his face in his sleeves for a few seconds to regain his composure, knowing he was acting like a total lovestruck dork. He couldn’t help it! Kim loved him, and every time he remembered it, the universe suddenly felt like a brighter place.

Right. That was enough of being an embarrassing wreck. Time for breakfast.

 

 

 

“MAX!” he heard Kim yelling from across the dining hall as soon as he entered it. Max barely had time to even look up at him before being rushed at and enveloped in a hug.

“Good morning, Kim,” he mumbled into the side of Kim’s shirt, hugging him back. Things still didn’t feel quite real.

“Good morning to you too, you awesome, amazing sweetheart!” Kim pulled back to take a look at him, and his eyes dropped down to the brooch. “Hey, isn’t that – that’s the–”

“The brooch you gave me last year, yes.”

“Aww, _Max!_ That’s so sweet!” Kim took Max’s hand and pulled him over to the royalty table to sit beside him. “I’m wearing the heart-thing you got me too.”

Sure enough, the golden-red heart badge was gleaming brightly on Kim’s chest. Max felt his own heart soaring – everything had fallen into place so well, so perfectly, so much better than he had ever expected. He hadn’t thought things could possibly work out that well in real life. It felt more like a fairy tale.

He hadn’t realized that he and Kim were sitting there staring at each other until he heard Alix clearing her throat from across the table.

“Uh, good morning to you too, Max.”

Max snapped himself back into reality. He saw that Alix’s snake was entirely covered in friendship stickers. “Good morning… where did you get all those stickers from?”

She grinned, giving the snake a little stroke. “Believe it or not, I got given a friendship sticker from every single kid in our class yesterday.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah! I know, right? It’s weird. But I guess I’m just so cool that everyone wants to be my friend.”

Wow. She really had branched out a lot this year, hadn’t she? He thought back to when they had first started at this school, and she always complained about how everyone was afraid of her and how bad she was at making friends. It seemed that she had really done well for herself since then. Max was impressed.

Kim, on the other hand, was looking almost… jealous?

“You seriously got more stickers than me?” he asked, frowning.

“Well yeah, apparently.” She had a rather smug smile. “I’m so _friendly_ these days! What can I say? Maybe I’m just a–”

“A friendship slut?”

“Um… I was gonna actually say a ‘hopeless platonic’ but you know what? ‘Friendship slut’ officially overtakes ‘no romo’ as the funniest thing you have ever said.”

Max couldn’t help giggling a little, listening to his two idiot friends being silly. Well, one of those idiot friends was his _sweetheart_ too. That was still going to take a bit of getting used to.

“Oh, and everyone’s staring at you two,” Alix added.

Max looked around to see his classmates watching him and Kim with looks ranging from puzzled to amused. Oh right… Kim had made rather a big deal of Max’s entrance. And still had his arm around Max’s shoulder. And they were both wearing heart pins. And sitting very close together.

“Are you all jealous?” Kim said to the onlookers, pulling Max even closer with one hand and running his other hand through his perfect, beautiful hair. “I have the coolest sweetheart in the world, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

Hearing Kim brag about him made Max want to just melt right into his seat. Most of the classmates still looked rather surprised. At least, until quiet Prince Nathaniel spoke up.

“About time.”

Everyone turned to look at him. He blushed and quickly lowered his head, carrying on eating his breakfast.

“True, I was wondering when you two would get together!” Rose was the next one to speak. She had the biggest smile on her face. “I’m so happy for you!”

“Nice going,” Juleka said.

“I knew it would happen!” Marinette said, a somewhat sad smile on her face. Her Cupid Festival probably hadn’t been much fun, considering that Adrien was still stuck thousands of miles away. Seeing happy couples must have been heart-breaking for her.

The remaining classmates all gave their vague congratulations too, most of them seemingly not that bothered. It sounded like most of them had already been expecting Kim and Max to get together. To be fair, it had been the same way for many of the class couples so far.

 

The rest of the day proceeded much like breakfast had done. Kim clearly was not concentrating very much in class, secretly holding Max’s hand under the table and occasionally just ending up staring at him for long periods of time until someone distracted him. It was so ridiculous, but so very _Kim_ , and all Max wanted to do was just ruffle his hair and give him a big hug. How could Kim always be so cute without even trying?

After dinner Max made sure to take Kim to the library so that he would actually do his homework, rather than putting it off to go do something else. To his credit, Kim focused properly and got on with his work without complaining or getting distracted.

“That was quick,” Max said once Kim had, somehow, already finished.

“I told you, you make me feel smarter!” Kim replied. “And it’s not like I wasn’t already used to doing homework with you…”

That much was true. Max felt his face heating up, as it so often did around Kim these days. “Kim, you need to give yourself more credit. It’s not me who’s making you smarter, it’s you! You’ve been working hard and it’s paying off.”

Kim rested his head on his hand and gazed at Max, his whole face just radiating pure love. “Then why do I finish homework so much quicker when I’m with you compared to the rest of the time?”

“Well… okay, you got me there. Maybe it’s the power of love.”

Eek, that was so cheesy. Max looked down at his finished work, not knowing what else to say. He felt Kim put a finger under his chin and gently lift his face back up to look at him.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said softly.

Alright, that was just… way too sweet. Max pushed Kim’s hand away. “Don’t. Or I’ll end up kissing you in the middle of this library right now.”

“Well why not?”

Oh, classic Kim. He always was such a hopeless romantic. Max leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, hoping no one nearby was watching. “There you go.”

Kim seemed to be blushing a little, though it was hard to tell with the tall shelves blocking out so much of the light. “So um, since we’re done with homework… wanna go back to my room and like, play Monopoly or something? This time I won’t mind if you win. And if Alix joins us then I won’t fight her this time, I swear. Unless she attacks first.”

“Monopoly sounds great,” Max said. “And if you win – which you won’t, because I always win – then you can get a kiss from me.”

Kim chuckled. “Well if you win then you can get a kiss from me too! How does that sound?”

“Sounds perfect!”

“And what does Alix get if she wins?”

Max had a think. “Food. We give her food.”

“Good idea. Let’s go!”

Kim quickly shovelled all his work into his bag, helped Max do the same, then grabbed his hand and ran.

 

 

Having tracked down Alix along the way, the three of them went to Kim’s room for the Monopoly game. There was a little wrapped gift lying on the table. Kim immediately rushed forwards to tear all the wrapping paper off, revealing a box of chocolates and a note.

_Congratulations for yesterday!_

“It doesn’t say who it’s from,” Kim said, shrugging. He turned back to face them. “Alright, whoever wins the Monopoly gets these chocolates.”

“What if my snake wins?” Alix asked, holding up the reptile in question. “He doesn’t eat chocolate.”

“Wait, is your snake playing too?!”

“Yeah. I taught him how last weekend. He’s really good.”

Kim frowned. “Uh, okay… well if he wins then he can like… go find a mouse and eat it or something. And I can just eat these mystery chocolates myself, like the mystery person intended.”

The snake knew how to play Monopoly? Max had known that queen cobras were smart, but he hadn’t realized they were quite _that_ smart. He made a very important decision – this time he was pulling out all the stops. There was no way he could lose a game of Monopoly to a _snake_. He had to beat it. At all costs.

They set up the board, and the game that followed was surprising to say the least. The first person to lose was Kim, and he immediately began rooting for Max to win (probably because he wanted a kiss – though Max was definitely intending on giving him one no matter who won). The second person to lose was Alix. Somehow, the snake was still going. It used its tail to roll the dice, collect money, and push its counter along the board.

“This is ridiculous,” Max muttered, landing on yet another hotel. “I’m losing to a snake.”

The snake hissed at him and took his money. All of it.

Wait… surely that couldn’t be right…

“Let me double check that.”

The snake handed the money back, and Max counted it. Then he counted it again, and then one last time just to make sure.

Nope. The snake was right. Max had just gone bankrupt.

“Congratulations,” he said, trying not to sound too disappointed. “Please give me tips sometime.”

The snake just stared at him for a few seconds, almost looking as if it was judging him, and then curled back up onto Alix’s arm.

“Nice work, pal,” she said, standing up. “Anyway you guys, I’ve got to go settle a bet with Chloé, she said there was no way my snake could win at Monopoly, so now she has to buy him new sunglasses…”

Max just watched in complete disbelief as she and that dratted snake left without another word. How could he have lost to a snake? A _snake???_

He felt Kim poking him in the arm.

“Hey sweetie, you still want those chocolates?”

_Sweetie_. Kim had called him a cute nickname. A reminder that they were sweethearts now as well as best friends. Max gulped down the well of emotions rising within him.

“But I didn’t win…”

“It’s okay. When I made the rules I wasn’t counting the snake. Out of me, you, and Alix, you’re the winner. So you get the chocolates.”

He passed the box of chocolates to Max.

“Oh Kim, it’s alright, you don’t have to!”

“Yes I do,” Kim said, putting an arm around Max. “I probably shouldn’t eat these anyway. Remember what happened the last time I ate loads of chocolate?”

Oh yes, the winter party…

“You have a point,” Max said. “Alright, I’ll have the chocolates then. Thank you.”

“And um… does this mean I kiss you now?”

Kim was blushing again. Instead of replying, Max just pushed down all his nervousness and gave Kim a quick kiss, feeling a huge rush of adrenaline as he did so. Was he ever going to get used to that? Part of him didn’t even _want_ to get used to it. It was oddly nice. It didn’t make sense that it should be, but it was.

“By the way,” Max said, hoping he wasn’t sounding quite as flustered as he felt, “you don’t have to ask next time… sweetie…”

“Mmkay…”

Kim was looking far too starstruck to be able to speak properly, so Max just gave his hand a quick squeeze and stood up to leave. He grabbed the box of chocolates – he couldn’t wait to treat himself to these later. Who were these even from, anyway?

“See you later,” Max said. “I’ll let you know how the chocolates are.”

Kim just nodded, still with that dopey smile on his face. Why did it look so cute?! Max waved goodbye and hurried out of the room before he was tempted to just kiss Kim again.

 

 

For the next several hours, though he had been intending to maybe read a book or do something productive, there was nothing in Max’s room that did not remind him of Kim. The desk chair? Kim loved to sit on it and spin around like an adorable fool. The closet? Well, both Kim and Max were going to have to come _out_ of one of those to their countries at some point… The luxury four-poster bed that all royalty students were supplied with? He and Kim had sat on there plenty of times, chatting for hours and hours on lazy, blissful afternoons.

Feeling hot and restless, Max opened the window and breathed in the cool winter air. That was a little better. It was already so dark outside. Of course, this area of the Bourgeois Empire was at a much higher latitude than he was used to, so during the winter months there were fewer sunlight hours and the temperatures were much lower…

Oh, he had taught Kim that. Not even at school, but much longer ago, at a summer camp one year far to the north, where little Kim had not understood why the sun didn’t set until late into the night. Max remembered telling Kim about how the seasons worked scientifically, and feeling his heart flutter at seeing this handsome friend of his staring at him with such concentration in his eyes, like he was fascinated with every word Max was saying…

Okay, he was being a dork. A hopeless dork. Time to actually do something _other_ than daydreaming over his new sweetheart.

He picked up his phone to send a message to Alix. She would be annoyed if all he did was talk to her about Kim, right? So at least that would force his brain to think of something else. If there was one thing Max was an expert at, it was thinking.

_Another guess for the lift: that was when you taught your snake to play Monopoly?_

He was still curious about that lift thing. Would he ever find out? Or would he spend his entire life never knowing, never being able to correctly guess?

_Nice try, but no._

Oh. Right. Well, it would be hard to teach a snake Monopoly with no example of the board game available nearby. Time for more guesses.

_Breath-holding competition?_

Thinking logically, it was likely to have been a competition of some kind. Max knew his friends too well at this point.

_Closer. But still no._

Hmm. There were only a limited number of things one could have done in a lift with no outside interaction. Even if it was a competition, there weren’t many things he could think of. He knew it hadn’t been another kissing competition, and it couldn’t have been an eating competition if they had no food with them–

Food! The chocolates!

Maybe this was a good time to treat himself to some of those. He grabbed the box and lay back on the bed. Opening the box up, he saw that there was a good selection of chocolates to choose from. They all looked great!

He picked out one of them and was about to eat it when he noticed that the light in his room was flickering slightly. Not wanting to get a migraine, he put the chocolate down and stood up. Better to get the lightbulb changed sooner rather than later, right? At least this part of the empire was advanced enough not to have to use candles or gas lamps, or whatever people had used in the old days.

Upon closer inspection he realized that the light itself was not flickering. There was a moth that must have flown in through the open window and was now fluttering around the bulb, casting flickering shadows on the walls. Well, that was a lot easier to deal with. Max was not afraid of insects – or spiders, of course.

Using his jacket to be able to reach that high, he tried to wave the moth in another direction. If he could just get it back out of the window and then close it, that would be perfect! But of course, the silly thing just refused to come away from the light, didn’t it…

It was at least ten minutes of unsuccessful moth-removal attempts before he gave up. Maybe the moth would leave in the daytime. For now he could deal with the flickering. He sat back on the bed and picked up the chocolate, hoping it would distract him from the annoyance of having that moth around.

There was a sudden knock at the door. Would that be Kim? Max couldn’t stop his hopes shooting up. There was no real reason for Kim to be visiting him right now, but hey, Kim was a very romantic person, maybe he just felt like going to see his sweetheart again. Maybe he wanted some of the chocolates. Whatever the reason, Max was always glad to see him.

Putting the chocolate down again, he went to open the door, only to see that it was not Kim. It was Alix. And she did _not_ look happy. She hadn’t even brought her snake with her. Something must be serious.

“You didn’t eat the chocolates, did you?”

For some reason she sounded like she was on the verge of tears, something Max did not hear very often at all considering how tough she always acted. Surprised, he just shook his head.

“Oh, thank _god_ …”

The next thing he knew, he had been wrapped in a hug. A very, _very_ tight hug. Max was used to tight hugs, considering that he spent most of his time with _Prince Kim_ of all people, but this was on another level entirely.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Just… d-don’t eat those chocolates… okay?”

She was definitely crying now, that much he could tell, and still clinging onto him for dear life.

“Why?” he asked, managing to pull her into the room enough that he could close the door. He doubted she would want anyone passing by to catch her having a meltdown, or whatever was happening right now.

In any case, her only reply was to mumble something about timelines, and then hug him even tighter, so much that his ribs must have been close to cracking. She had a lot of strength for someone so small.

Right… timelines. In other words, there was probably a very confusing explanation for all this.

“Are you okay?” he asked her, realizing as he said it that it was a very stupid question which he already knew the answer to, considering that she was crying into his shoulder right now.

“It’s not me you should be worried about!” she said suddenly, finally pulling back enough for him to see her teary face. “Max, those chocolates are _poisoned_. I know, because… the t-timelines just branched again, and… I just… I just saw you… you ate the… the…”

Unable to go on, she leaned into his chest, bursting into a fresh wave of tears.

The chocolates were poisoned? So then that must mean… was he interpreting this right? In another timeline, he must have already eaten a chocolate. A _poisoned_ chocolate.

Oh… no wonder she was freaking out.

He put his arms around her properly. “It’s okay. I didn’t eat any chocolates in this timeline, I promise. I’m fine.”

That didn’t seem to help her much. For at least the next few minutes she carried on crying, clearly trying in vain to get her tears under control. Max remembered her mentioning that apparently the emotions of other timelines could affect her too, like what had happened in the summer holidays, which would explain why she was so overwhelmed despite nothing having happened in this timeline. Or something like that. She had never quite explained it properly. And if this was the kind of pain her powers could bring, then it was no wonder she didn’t like talking about it.

A strange sense of dread was settling over him. If those chocolates really were poisoned, then how close had he been to eating them? What if Kim had eaten them, as intended? And why were they poisoned? Where did they even come from?

Something was very, very wrong.

Eventually Max managed to prise Alix off him, sitting her down and giving her a glass of water. He very carefully put the chocolate back in the box and put it right on the opposite side of the room. He had been so ridiculously close to eating it. Too close for comfort…

He filled a glass of water for himself too and then sat down beside her. She seemed to have somewhat calmed down by now, though there were still silent tears running down her cheeks.

“So,” he said, trying not to sound too pushy, “what happened?”

She put her empty glass on the table, having finished rather quickly. “I’ve already had to deal with a timeline where me and my snake were the ones who died. I guess it’s your turn now.”

Died?

Max felt a chill run down him. Of course he knew many poisons did kill, but he hadn’t yet quite connected the dots in his head. Now, though…

“How exactly did it happen?” he asked, pushing down his fear. Hopefully she would be okay with talking about it.

“In the other timeline I was just in my room, like I was now, and you had been sending me stupid messages and whatever. And then I got one that just said ‘SOS’. So I came to your room, and you were d-doubled over, and managed to tell me that the chocolates t-tasted bitter and weird and now you – you were like _dying_ , and I tried to take you to the medical centre but you – you – right in my _arms_ – just–”

She had started crying again and couldn’t carry on, but Max didn’t want to hear any more anyway. That had been creepy enough without more details.

“So in this timeline, you ran right here to check up on me,” he said. “That moth up near the light stopped me eating the chocolate long enough for you to arrive, so I’m guessing that must be what caused the timelines to split. Perhaps the moth wasn’t there in the poisoned chocolates timeline. So the other Max wasn’t distracted, and ate a chocolate around ten minutes earlier.”

Thinking about things from a logical, detached point of view was the only way to stop the terrifying reality of this situation from seeping into his brain and lodging itself there, haunting him forever. Another thought occurred to him – one that felt like a ray of hope in all the darkness.

“You saved my life,” he said quietly. “I was about to eat a chocolate when you came here and warned me. And, well… maybe I’m not alive in another timeline, but in this one, it’s thanks to you that I’m still breathing…”

She hugged him again, more gently this time, and he gladly accepted it. His brain was almost certainly starting to malfunction in the way that it did when he had occasional breakdowns – though at least this time he had a good reason. Knowing that this was affecting him didn’t help. Having his best friend hold him tight did make a difference, though. Hearing her uneven breathing in his ear, odd strands of hair brushing the side of his face, her tears dripping onto his shirt, knowing that she _needed_ him right now more than ever, and that if it wasn’t for her then he would have suffered a painful death…

How could he ever have taken her for granted?

“I can’t lose you, okay?” she said, still hugging him for reassurance. “I love you, you stupid nerd, you’re my best friend! I’m not having you die on me because of a freaking _chocolate!_ You – you mean too much to me, okay? I never say it enough so I’m saying it now ‘cause I don’t know what’s gonna happen and you might just die any second and I can’t take that, you deserve so much better, you’re just – you’re my best friend in the whole damn universe – and–”

Hearing her cry once again was putting Max himself on the verge of tears too, and he knew that both of them being an emotional wreck would be a bad idea. Back to logical thinking for now. The emotions could wait. Alix needed him right now, he had to hold himself together, even in the face of such a near-death event.

“The most important thing is that I’m alive and well, thanks to you.” He hugged her a little closer, hoping that would comfort her somewhat. His brain continued working, his train of thought carrying on out loud. “You know what? It’s a good thing Kim gave these chocolates to me. They were obviously meant for him, and since they’re poisoned, this seems like a deliberate assassination attempt. Which means that…”

A pang of panic hit him full force. _Kim was in danger_.

Forget logic, forget thinking. Now the real breakdown was happening. Someone was trying to kill Kim, and it was by chance alone that they hadn’t succeeded.

He had meant to say more, but now he simply couldn’t. The thought of Kim being the victim of a real assassination attempt had zapped him of every last piece of resolve he had. Was he crying? Maybe he was crying. None of his senses were working all of a sudden. All he could think about was Kim.

“Max. Dude.” Alix had stopped hugging him and was holding him at arm’s length, looking more determined now. He hadn’t noticed. “If someone is trying to kill Kim, I am gonna kill them first. I’m not having _either_ of my best friends die. We’re getting to the bottom of this.”

Max nodded. She was right, wasn’t she? They had to find out what was going on and stop it. They had to save Kim’s life.

The thought gave him just the tiniest flickers of strength, enough for his resolve to return. He clenched his fists.

“You’re right,” he said. “No more leaving things to chance. We must take fate into our own hands, and find a way to protect Kim and stop the assassin.”

For the first time that evening, she smiled. It was small and weak, but at least it was there.

“No more bad timelines,” she said.

“No more bad timelines,” he repeated. “Alix… we are going to solve a mystery.”


	47. Alya investigates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I was updating this on Sundays but since there's a new episode coming out tomorrow I just know I'm gonna forget about this if I don't do it now. So anyway, from now on, updates at some point during the weekends!

Alix had never before been so grateful that Max was one of the calmest, most logical people she had ever met. She was sure that he must be freaking out too – an _assassination attempt_ was not something to be taken lightly – but at least he was a lot better at outwardly hiding it than she was. But then again, he didn’t have to deal with his brain constantly reminding him of the image of his own best friend dying horribly right in his arms, so of course it was easier for him.

Anyway, she had to get her mind off that somehow. Time to solve this mystery.

First they went back to her room to get the snake, just to keep a close eye on it as always, and then they took the chocolates over to the school authorities in the office near Duke Damocles’s tower. It was late at night by now and students were really not supposed to be wandering around the corridors, but luckily they did not run into anyone.

The school authorities did not seem to take the matter very seriously. They took the chocolates and smiled rather unconvincingly, telling Alix and Max to just go back to sleep and they would sort it all out in the morning. Then they shut the door and locked it.

“I’m not waiting till morning,” Alix said immediately, thinking about how much of a difference even a few minutes could make when it came to life or death situations. “And I don’t trust these authorities, they don’t really seem to care. What should we do now? Do we tell Kim?”

Max was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “I suggest we go talk to Alya. She’ll know what to do.”

That was a good idea. Alya’s spy ring was not much of a secret among the royals, despite the fact that ordinarily spy rings were meant to be kept hidden. The simple fact was that Alya’s reputation as spymaster was usually enough to strike fear into the hearts of anyone up to mischief, and so there was hardly any need for secrecy. And plus, no one actually knew the identities of most of her agents, so the main bulk of the spy network was left intact. She really knew what she was doing.

They went back to the dorms and knocked on Alya’s door. When she opened it she had her pyjamas on and her hair in a silk scarf, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“I’m guessing if you’re waking me up this late there’s an emergency, and it better not be anything to do with Adrien being in danger yet again,” she muttered.

“Not Adrien who’s in danger,” Max said. “Someone else.”

“Alright, well come in and tell me about it. I’ll see what I can do.”

They entered her room and she shut the door behind them, and Max immediately launched into an explanation of everything that was much more coherent than Alix probably would have managed. Seriously, how was he so logical? Even when his own best friend was in such imminent danger? Wait – not just best friend. Sweetheart, too.

“Poisoned chocolates,” Alya mused, tapping her chin in thought. “Sent to Kim anonymously. I do indeed have some suspicions, but nothing definite. I’ll go start up an investigation and do everything I can – meanwhile you just sit tight and wait. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve discovered anything. If it’s safe to do so, that is. I don’t know how long things will take so you can try going to sleep if you want.”

She pulled on a cloak and left through the door, picking up a little notebook from the table as she did so.

“I’m not going to sleep, no way,” Alix said. She knew perfectly well what would happen if she went to sleep right now, when the other timeline – the Poisoned Chocolates Timeline – was in such turmoil. It was hard enough to get the image of Max dying out of her head even while awake. Sleep would be nothing but nightmare after nightmare, for sure.

“I would prefer not to sleep for now either,” Max said. He sat down on the floor against the side of the bed, his knees curled up to his chest, finally starting to look as stressed as he must feel.

“I need some distraction,” she said, sitting down beside him.

“What kind of distraction?”

“Literally anything. Just talk to me about something. Stupid stuff. Happy things. Or funny things. I don’t care, just get my mind off those stupid chocolates.”

More like get her mind off all these stupid deaths. First she’d had to deal with seeing her snake beheaded, then suffer the pain of a nasty death by snake bite, and now witnessing Max die too? Part of her wished beyond reason that she never had these timeline powers in the first place. They were only making her unhappy. But then again, if she didn’t have these powers then she wouldn’t have been able to warn Max about the chocolates, and he would have died this time too…

“What should I talk about?” he said, his voice weak and tired. He had taken off that little heart brooch from Kim and was looking at it fondly. Those two really liked each other a lot, didn’t they?

“How such a smart, logical person like you could have been so dumb about your ridiculous crush on Kim for several months,” she suggested, smiling a little. Max began smiling too, looking embarrassed.

“I just didn’t think he would like me back…”

“Yeah, I know, you kept saying that. It was so annoying.”

“Yes, it must have been…” Some thought must have occurred to him, since his whole demeanour suddenly changed. He looked down at the floor and said, in a rather fake-casual voice, “By the way, um… you said you wanted me to talk to you about ‘stupid stuff’ well, I uh, had a bit of a question actually, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while…”

“No, I’m not telling you what happened in the lift, and it wasn’t even very stupid. It was cool.”

“Oh, it’s not that! I just… um…” He was fiddling nervously with the brooch. “From, um, a scientific point of view, because I’m curious, I was just wondering… well… everyone knows what happened at the winter party, and based on things you’ve said happened in other timelines, I wanted to ask… alright this is sounding a little stupider than intended but… do you have any tips? For kissing Kim?”

For a few seconds she just stared at him in disbelief. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t _that_.

“For science!” Max said quickly.

Science. Uh-huh. Sure.

She couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter.

“I wasn’t joking!” Max said, giving her a rather sharp poke in the arm. “If I’m going to be a good ruler then I need to have knowledge in a vast area of subjects, including romance, so…”

“It’s really not that hard,” she said, still laughing a little. Some stupid humour was indeed a very welcome distraction from traumatizing deaths. “It’s not like I knew what I was doing either, I mean, you just gotta like try to forget how gross it is and make sure you breathe, ‘cause that idiot has the best lung capacity and doesn’t need to so you better not die, and if you don’t tilt your head then your nose will get in the way and it’ll be hilarious, and he’s pretty tall so maybe stand on something…”

“I know all this already,” Max huffed. “I’ve already kissed him twice actually, and I’ll have you know that I have indeed studied the art of kissing, so I know plenty of this…”

“You’ve _studied the art of–_ ”

“For scientific purposes!” he said hastily. “For science. Of course.”

“Of _course_.”

“Shush. Anyway, I didn’t want generic tips. I want tips specific to Kim. What does he like? Considering how much he hates admitting that people are better than him, yet in both this timeline and others you seem to have apparently proven yourself a better kisser, you must have done something right.”

She shrugged. “Dude, Kim already likes you loads. I don’t think he really cares if you’re good at kissing or not. Just do what you want.”

“I suppose… if he survives all this assassination drama, that is… otherwise it’ll all be irrelevant anyway…”

The seriousness of the situation hit her again, like a tidal wave. But no – she didn’t want to think about it! _Anything_ but those poisoned chocolates, the very real possibility that her friends were close to death.

“Fine, I’ll help you,” she sighed, trying not to laugh again when saw how Max’s face lit up. He was as much of a dork as Kim was, honestly. “But for the record, I’ll just warn you that kissing is totally disgusting and I don’t get how people enjoy it.”

“I think that’s just you.”

“Yeah…”

She thought back to the other timelines, carefully avoiding recent chocolate-related events, and went straight for those cursed spring holidays. Well… part of them, anyway. Thinking about them too much was definitely going to have her throwing up again, and her mood was already bad enough as it was.

“You already know what a hopeless romantic he is,” she said, “which honestly makes you a way better match for him than me, like seriously what was he thinking. Anyway, the point is that if you be really cheesy and sappy and like… I don’t know, whisper lovey-dovey stuff in his ear or whatever, he’s gonna melt. Just be really romantic.”

Max quickly stood up to grab a piece of paper and pencil off Alya’s desk, then sat back down and started writing. “Be… really… romantic…”

“Are you seriously _making notes?”_

“I told you, this is all purely for scientific research,” he said, still writing.

“Wow, I can’t wait for you to tell Kim that when you’re making out with him. _‘Hey Kim, isn’t this scientific research fun?’_ So very romantic of you. He’ll love it.”

“Just keep going!”

“Alright…”

Trying not to gag, she carried on looking through the timelines. It was a mess. Hopefully Kim and Max’s relationship wouldn’t end up such a superficial, colossal trainwreck.

“Like I said, he has the best lung capacity,” she continued, “so he’s not very good at uh… stopping. Because he forgets that other people need to actually breathe. So don’t be afraid to just shove him away and go do something else because you’re bored or grossed out or whatever. Though I expect that won’t be a problem for you.”

“I shall practise holding my breath,” Max muttered as he continued to write.

“You’re really taking all this that seriously?”

“Yes!”

Wow… people really surprised her sometimes. All her life she had known that romance was something considered very important, yet she still often found it hard to believe that it wasn’t just some conspiracy that everyone was in on. Surely people didn’t genuinely care about it that much? But clearly Max did, and she knew that Kim did too, and so did everyone else…

She reminded herself firmly of the article in the science journal, and that being aromantic was a real thing, and that it wasn’t just her alone in the universe like this, and then she forced her bitterness out of her mind to carry on helping Max. Now was not the time to be grumpy. Especially considering everything else that was going on.

“I don’t even know why you would do this in the first place,” she said, “but if you even attempt to do that gross French-kiss thing with the tongue then he will go and get a pair of scissors and chop it off so you can never do that again. Because he actually does agree with me that tongues are gross. Though he disagrees about the teeth. Apparently those are okay for some reason.”

Max nodded, then jotted that down on the piece of paper. He really was taking this absurdly seriously. It was almost funny, really. At least she knew for certain that he loved Kim a _hell_ of a lot.

“And I’m pretty sure he has a secret weakness for neck kisses, so uh, do that thing.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Max asked, finally looking up.

“Man I don’t know, I’m the complete wrong person to be asking.”

He chuckled. “Oh yes, true… you have been making your distaste very clear so far…”

“Good. Hmm, what else… well he likes pillows, so he will definitely cheat on you with his imaginary pillow sweetheart. But you knew that. And he absolutely has a thing for sports bras, which you probably knew too, though I guess that might be irrelevant in your case. Who knows if it works with guys. If you’re a girl then it’s a definite shortcut to him wanting to make out with you though, that’s for sure.”

“Are you sure it was the sports bra’s fault? Are you sure it wasn’t just you?”

“Um, trust me. It was definitely the bra.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. I’m not telling you because it’s weird. So stop being nosy.”

Max grinned. “There’s a lot you haven’t told me…”

“Yeah, because it’s weird, and I don’t want to have to think about it or I’m gonna vomit. Anyway, I’ve had enough timeline digging for today, you can figure out everything else yourself. And I’m pretty sure Kim likes you for different reasons than he liked me, so maybe everything I’ve said might be irrelevant.”

“Thank you anyway,” Max said, folding up the piece of paper and slipping it into his pocket.

At that moment the door opened and Alya came back into the room, dragging a sleepy-looking Kim in with her. She quickly shut the door behind them.

“I’ve found out some information, and also woken up Kim and explained everything, since I doubt either of you would want to have to go through that again,” she said, so fast, bringing the mood back down to how low it had been before.

Kim went and sat down on the other side of Max, giving them all a shaky smile. “This is a pretty weird thing to wake up to, isn’t it… that I’m so cool I’ve got actual assassins after me, how rad is that…”

“It won’t be so rad if they actually succeed,” Alya said, sitting on the desk chair and looking down at the three of them. “Anyway, I haven’t yet found out who did it. All I have been able to discover so far is that the school authorities have quietly disposed of the chocolates without testing them, which most likely suggests that they already knew about the assassination plot and were told to ignore it – either because they planned it, were part of it, or are allied with whoever planned it. So the culprit is probably someone from the Bourgeois Empire or one of its numerous allies. Of course, Bourgeois isn’t _officially_ allied with Agreste until they manage to track Adrien down, but according to Chloé, Bourgeois will do anything to provide Agreste with assistance, which could involve aiding an assassination. But none of this is certain.”

That was a lot to take in at once. Alya scribbled something in her little notebook.

“I’ll carry on my investigations and try to find out who is behind this and how to stop them,” she continued. “It might take a while. In the meantime, I’ll find a way to keep you safe Kim, don’t worry. My kingdom is like this all the time, I’m used to it. Dodging assassination plots is my business. Just carry on as normal, and don’t act like anything is different. Don’t mention the poisoned chocolates to anyone.”

“I’ll try,” Kim said.

“Good. You’ll be alright. And Max, I’m glad you’re okay too. As for Alix, well… you’re going to hate me for this, but I have a difficult job for you to do. I know looking into the other timeline is the last thing you want to do right now, but if you can manage it, it might help us somehow. The death of a royalty student, and especially not the one the authorities were expecting, is high treason and would certainly be thoroughly investigated, and they might be able to find out who was responsible quicker and more accurately than I can. So if you can find out from the other timeline who the assassin is and why they did it, that can help us catch them here as quick as possible with minimal suspicion. Is that okay?”

Alix just nodded, feeling her heart sinking at the prospect of having to look at what was going on in that timeline right now. A timeline where the reality was that Max was _dead_ , and there was nothing she could do about it. It was hard enough to not cry again when blocking out the timeline, so how was she supposed to cope when deliberately looking at it?

“I suggest you all go get some sleep now,” Alya said. “I know that seems impossible, but just try. I know what it’s like to be in danger. You’ll get through this. Now goodnight.”

“Can’t we have a sleepover?” Kim asked.

“Do you really think there’s space in here for that?”

Memories of the Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad suddenly flooded back into Alix’s head. “Yeah, there’s space for that,” she said.

“No there isn’t. Alix, you have a monarch-size room complete with a balcony. Us princes and princesses don’t get that.”

She looked around, realizing that it was true – Alya’s room was smaller than her own, and she had never even really noticed.

“Anyway, things will seem a little better in the morning,” Alya said. “Just get some sleep. It’ll be sorted out soon, I promise. Spymaster Alya can sort out anything.”

Alya sounded so confident, so sure of herself. Maybe she was just acting the part to get everyone to stop worrying. But it did somewhat work.

“Fine,” Alix said, standing up. “Goodnight.”

Part of her wanted to go and hug Max again, just to remind herself that he was indeed okay, that he was alive and well, that he hadn’t eaten those chocolates. But if she did then she was afraid that she would never want to let go, and everything would be overwhelming again. She just couldn’t go through that again. The feeling of having someone she cared about _killed_.

So instead she just waved and left the room, trudging back to her own one and trying not to imagine some cold-blooded assassin waiting in the shadows, out to get her friends. There was someone in this very building who was planning a murder at this very moment. It made her blood boil with rage.

Whoever they were, she was _not_ going to let them get away with this.

 

 

 

 

Kim was up early the next morning. To be fair, he really hadn’t slept very much at all. After going back to his own room last night he had lain awake for hours, his mind spinning. Did someone really want to kill him? And who would be cruel enough to do it with chocolates, of all food?

The part that scared him most, though, was that somewhere in another timeline, Max had paid for it with his life. His poor, precious, sweet Max, an innocent victim. Gone forever. It sent shivers down his spine to think of losing him, made him tear up, made him want to punch a wall, all sorts of weird and terrifying emotions that he barely knew how to handle. He wanted to be worried for himself, like he knew he should be considering that someone was trying to kill him, but all he could even think about was Max.

That Max really _had_ died, somewhere out there, and the only reason he didn’t here was down to luck alone. One tiny moth was the difference between him living and dying.

So it was really no wonder that Kim had barely got any sleep that night, considering he had just been hugging a pillow and trying to stave off the tears as best as he could. He was afraid, he was stressed, he just didn’t know what to do. How on earth was he supposed to act totally normal in the morning, as if nothing was wrong at all? How could he do that when all he wanted to do was hold Max in his arms and protect him from harm until the end of time?

 

Before breakfast that morning, they all met up in Alya’s room again. It was mostly by accident – clearly they all wanted to check up with her about whether her investigations had uncovered anything else, and what were they supposed to do now.

“I looked in the other timeline and found out some stuff,” Alix said, looking and sounding grumpier than Kim had ever seen her, which really was saying something. “Because of… what happened to Max… the police forces from the International Alliance got involved and worked through the night. They found out who did it and managed to track him down and arrest him. Some dude who claimed to be working for the Agreste Empire, I think his name was Theo or something. I’m not entirely sure, since the version of me from that timeline is really not in the mood for doing anything except maybe committing a few murders herself.”

“Theo?!” Alya leapt to her feet. “Are you sure?”

“I literally just said that no, I’m not sure.”

“Theo… Theo…” Alya began pacing around the room. “Surely it can’t be him. _Surely_ not. He used to work for me, quite a while ago. But then he did take up another job… but I thought he was working for the school, not an undercover assassin from Agreste… Would he really commit a murder? Well _yes_ , he really would… and if he’s working for the Agreste Empire, then… that could only mean…”

She stopped abruptly and looked up at the others, her face determined.

“I think I know what’s going on. You see, if Kim dies and the evidence points towards the Agreste Empire, Lê Chiến would almost certainly declare war on them, which is exactly what Emperor Gabriel would want, so he can use the unfounded accusation as an excuse to take more land without being so condemned by the other countries. In fact, Lê Chiến is already fairly weak – the previous king died in mysterious circumstances, an elderly regent is currently ruling, and they’re enemies with the most powerful empire in the world. Kim is the only thing holding the country together, and he can’t even go back there right now. If Kim dies, Agreste can attack. And that’s exactly what they want.”

None of it felt real. Here they were, a bunch of teenaged royalty, in a dorm room chatting about death, murder, global wars. Kim felt like he was going to have a heart attack every time someone mentioned him “dying”. It was so different to this time yesterday, when everything had been so blissful and perfect. How could it all have changed so fast? Did _Adrien’s father_ really want him dead?

“Of course, since the authorities threw away the chocolates, there’s no evidence of the crimes in this timeline,” Alya said, “and I doubt Alix’s timeline powers would be enough to go upon. No one from the Bourgeois Empire would be willing to help incriminate someone from Agreste, except Chloé probably. Theo – if he really is the assassin, which seems likely – is still roaming free as a supposed school guard, and probably still trying to kill Kim. We have to find a way to stop him without raising suspicion.”

“Can I fight him?” Alix asked, completely deadpan.

“I was thinking more like hiring him as a double agent actually. I’ve worked with him before, I know him better than anyone from Agreste does. Anyway, the most important thing for now is finding a permanent solution to the question of how to keep Kim safe. We need a way for Emperor Gabriel to not think it worth it to kill him and start a war. And I’m thinking that the best way to do that is to get Lê Chiến into the International Alliance, or at least ally officially with the countries in charge of it, which would deter Emperor Gabriel from causing a war, as it would result in much deeper backlash for him.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Max spoke up suddenly. “But how would that be possible? Kim hasn’t been crowned yet so he doesn’t have the authority to do such a thing, and his grandmother the regent is definitely not about to leave the country in order to organize it. In fact, there’s barely any way to get communications in and out of Lê Chiến, let alone people.”

“Messenger pigeon,” Alya said. “We get Kim to call Cheng, they send a pigeon to his grandma, she sends an official form giving him permission to be in charge of allies and possible entry into the International Alliance. And then you take him to Alix’s kingdom in the holidays, since they founded the International Alliance in the first place, and while he’s there he can negotiate alliances and get himself and his country some protection.”

Kim’s head was spinning again. This was all so much to take in. He wasn’t good at this politics business, he had no idea what he was doing, he couldn’t understand how any of this would stop someone halfway across the world from sending poisoned chocolates after him. He could barely understand why someone who he had never even personally met wanted him dead anyway. How could someone just _be_ like that? Kill without a second thought? As if someone’s life just meant nothing?

He felt something on his shoulder and jumped a little, only to see that it was Max resting his hand there and looking up at him, concerned.

“Kim, are you alright with all that?”

Kim gulped and nodded. “Um… yeah. I have to get my grandmother to let me make alliances and stuff. And then stay with Alix for the holidays. And somehow try and single-handedly get my country into the International Alliance – all without being assassinated…”

It really was all starting to weigh on him now. How was he supposed to do this? He had no idea what he was doing. Barely a prince, nowhere near skilled enough to be a king, the worst possible person for being put in charge of the fate of a country – the fate of so many innocent people if war ever really did break out! This wasn’t just about his own life, this was about _everyone’s_ life. So much overwhelming pressure… how could he even begin to do this?

“You don’t have to do it single-handedly,” Max said, his voice gentle and soothing. “We’ll be there to help you. I’ll come with you. It’ll be alright.”

Oh… that calming influence. Thank goodness for Max.

“In the meantime, I won’t let you get assassinated,” Alya said. “I have my ways. It’s better if you don’t know all the details, but trust me. You’re not going to die any time soon.”

“I’ll kickstart the alliance discussions back home if you want,” Alix said. “I can call Jalil and tell him to start getting the forms and meetings and stuff ready so that it’ll be quicker by the time we get there. Oh, and I have a venomous pet snake, so if anyone tries to hurt you then I _will_ kill them.”

“Um, maybe don’t kill them,” Kim said.

“Okay, I will scare them away. Is that better?”

He nodded. His friends were all so brave – willing to get involved in this political mess, just for him. Going to such lengths to protect him. It almost made him want to cry.

“Anyway, we’d better go to breakfast,” Alya said, looking at the clock on her wall. “And remember, just act normal. Don’t speak about this to anyone. You never know who’s listening in. Now come on.”

She put on her glasses – had she not been wearing them before? Kim hadn’t even noticed – and went out of the door. Alix quickly followed.

Kim took a deep breath, trying to return his brain to whatever its “normal” state was. At this point he didn’t even know. Right now it didn’t feel like life could ever go back to normal again, not really. Everything was different now. He had to actually step up and be a proper prince now. He wasn’t just Kim anymore, some foolish royal kid. He was Prince Kim, heir to the throne.

“Are you alright?” Max asked him. What an impossible question to answer.

“I guess,” Kim replied, once the silence had gone on too long to bear. “Are you?”

“Well I didn’t eat any poisoned chocolates, so I suppose I’m doing fine.”

Those poisoned chocolates… oh, poor Max…

“I’m really glad you’re safe,” Kim managed to say. How was he supposed to cope the whole day if he could barely even talk to Max without feeling too overwhelmed to function?

“I’m glad you’re safe, too.”

Aware that Max’s hand was still on his shoulder, Kim reminded himself what “normal” had been for him at this time of day yesterday. Normal had been swooning over Max, his new sweetheart, showing him off for all the world to see. Normal had been laughing with his friends, not a care in the world. At least some of that could be brought back. It would be a start.

He took Max’s hand in his own and gently kissed the tips of his fingers, feeling a comforting, familiar rush of adrenaline as he did so. Max was always the one constant he could rely on in this ever-changing world, the one person who made him feel at home.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he mumbled, willing himself not to cry. “You just… you… you’re…”

Max pressed his hand to Kim’s lips. “Shh. I know. I’m amazing.”

Kim couldn’t help but smile at that. “You really are.”

“And so are you, which is why all of us will always be here to help you out. Things will be okay.”

_Things will be okay_. It was hard to believe, but Max saying it made it sound much more real. If Max believed it, it must be true. Everything would turn out fine in the end.

“You’re a good prince,” Max continued, almost as if he could hear Kim’s thoughts. “You’ve been put into a very tough situation, but you’re doing your best, and that’s what’s important. You _always_ do your best. It’s… part of why I like you so much…”

And now Max was looking down slightly, smiling to himself, probably blushing somewhat. It was almost too cute to bear. At least being overwhelmed by his feelings for Max was much more pleasant than being overwhelmed by the pressure of knowing an assassin was after him and his death would cause a war, so perhaps his brain really was starting to go back to normal a little. At least enough to pretend like it to the others, anyway.

“Maybe we should go down to breakfast now,” he said, a little reluctantly. Part of him wanted to just stay here with Max forever.

“Yes, I suppose we should…” It sounded like Max was just as reluctant as he was. The thought sent his heart into loops. It was still hard to believe that Max loved him back, out of all people, out of all possibilities. That was one positive thing in a sea of negativities.

All of a sudden, Max held the sides of his face and pulled him into a kiss – a soft, lingering one, so sweet he was sure his brain was melting, and despite how long it lasted it just wasn’t enough.

“I love you,” Max whispered, before taking his hand and pulling him out of the door and towards the dining hall.

Kim was a little too catatonic to say “I love you too”, so he just let himself be pulled along by his sweetheart, trying not to stare, failing miserably, falling into a hopeless lovesick daze. Drowning in his love for Max was so much more preferable to drowning under an ocean of pressure and responsibilities.

Oh… thank goodness for Max. Thank goodness for all his friends. Maybe, with their help, he really could survive this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm... I could, theoretically, put Kimax kisses into every single chapter from this point onwards and no one can stop me... I FEEL TOO POWERFUL


	48. Theft

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure why this fic swings wildly between cracky filler and stressful angst but tbh that probably sums me up as a person... anyway, MEMES™

Where was Kim’s phone? He was sure he had left it beside the rest of his things in the library while he was working, then gone off to look for a particular reference book, and after that he just hadn’t seen it. Could he have left it in his room? No, he couldn’t have! He had very definitely been sending messages to Max all evening (and getting replies telling him firmly to do his homework and stop being romantic).

Had someone taken it? No, surely they wouldn’t. Stealing from a royal counted as treason. None of the nobles would do such a thing, they were all far too wimpy. Anyway, it wouldn’t exactly be of any use to them without the battery charger, which was up in Kim’s locked dorm room, so unless they somehow managed to break into there and steal that too, then what was the point of taking his phone?

But what if… this was something to do with that assassin? The one who had sent him the chocolates? Surely it couldn’t be? Why would an assassin need a phone? His brain was hurting from all this sudden worry. He was about to send a message to Max when he realized that duh, of course he couldn’t, _his phone was missing_. Obviously. He smacked himself in the forehead.

“Are you alright there, Kim?”

He looked over to see Chloé frowning at him, looking vaguely unimpressed but managing to mostly hide her usual disdainful glower.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just can’t find my phone.”

“Maybe Marinette took it.”

For a few seconds it didn’t register in his brain. Marinette…? Taking his phone? He almost wanted to laugh.

“Why do you say that?” he asked.

“Because she was snooping around here earlier and I haven’t seen anyone else nearby,” Chloé replied. Her unimpressed look had only increased at the mention of Marinette. Did those two still not like each other? But then again, Chloé was a lot better now, she wouldn’t just unfairly blame Marinette for something she didn’t do, even if they weren’t on great terms…

“I guess I’ll go ask her,” he said, picking up the rest of his things.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, I do! I mean… I believe you that Marinette was here. But why would she take my phone?”

Chloé just rolled her eyes. “I have no idea. Go ask her yourself.”

Of course. Now how was he going to do this exactly? It would be a bit tactless to just go into her room and say _“Oh hey Marinette, did you steal my phone by any chance?”_ Perhaps he would just have to ask her outright and hope that the fact that she was his first ever friend would get her to tell the truth. Marinette, much like Kim, was not known for making good decisions. This was probably just another mistake of hers. It was fine.

 

 

Marinette herself sat on the bed in Alya’s room, curled up into a ball, her hands over her eyes.

“I’m such an idiot oh my gosh Alya why did I take it why did I do that it’s not even my phone and what was I thinking–”

“It’s okay Marinette!” Alya put a soothing hand on her friend’s back. “Calm down. Just apologize and give the phone back to him. He’s your friend, he won’t mind.”

“I’m an idiot,” Marinette sobbed, still hiding away in her hands.

“You already said.”

“Do you think Kim will hate me? Will I be deposed? Arrested? Executed? Oh my gosh what if he starts a war with me? _Is stealing a prince’s phone considered treason???”_

“Well…” Alya shuffled into a more comfortable position. “Technically yes, it’s illegal and counts as treason. But if you really think Kim is going to start a war with you or have you executed then you don’t know your friend at all.”

Marinette put her hands down slightly, only to catch a glimpse of that phone sitting on the desk across the room, and put her hands right back up.

“Come on, I’ll help you,” Alya said. “All you need to do is go and apologize to him and give the phone back.”

“But he’ll want to know why I took it! What do I tell him?”

“The truth, of course! It’s no crime to want to talk to your family back home, especially somewhere as far away as Cheng.”

“But you know that’s not _entirely_ true… you know who I wanted to speak to really… my, um, pet cat…”

It still wasn’t safe to talk about Adrien’s whereabouts, even if it was unlikely that any guards were somehow listening in. It was better to get used to not talking about him, in case of otherwise letting something slip when secrecy really did matter.

“Kim will understand,” Alya said. “I’m sure he misses _your pet cat_ too. He knows how you feel.”

“Yeah… you’re right…”

There was a sudden knock at the door, followed by someone saying, “Hey Alya, are you there? I need your help solving a mystery!” The voice was unmistakeable.

“It’s Kim!” Marinette grabbed the covers and pulled them over her head. “Hide me.”

Alya pulled the covers off and pushed Marinette off the bed. “Oh no. You’re going to face him, you are. No hiding.” She got up and opened the door before Marinette could find anywhere else to hide.

“Oh, there you are Marinette!” Kim said. “I was looking for you actually.”

He knew. Oh boy, he knew. He knew she took the phone, he was going to be so mad…

“Hey, there’s my phone!” He had spotted it on the table now and ran forwards, picking it up. “So glad I found it! Marinette, did you take it? Chloé said she saw you near it earlier…”

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” Marinette gushed, curling back up into a ball right there on the floor. “I just wanted to call home and talk to my parents and my pet cat, you know who I mean, I wanted to make sure he’s okay and safe and tell him I miss him and everything else that’s been going on and letters take too long and I was going to ask you but you weren’t there and I panicked and stole your phone and I’m sorry and I meant to give it back and…”

“Oh, okay,” Kim said. “Well you can totally use it to call home if you want. Here you go.”

She lifted her face out of her knees to see that he was smiling and holding the phone out at her.

“You’re… not mad at me?”

“What? Nah, don’t worry. I’m just glad I found it.”

Oh… he wasn’t annoyed. He wasn’t annoyed at all. Thank goodness.

The amount of relief that Marinette felt flooding back into her was enough to make her feel ashamed. Kim was one of her best friends, he always had been for as long as she could remember, of course he wouldn’t be annoyed!

“Thanks,” Marinette said, taking the phone. “I really am sorry though. I promise I’ll ask first next time.”

“Cool, that way I won’t worry that it’s lost forever!”

“Um… do you have Cheng’s phone number by any chance?”

“I do,” Alya said. She had been half-sitting, half-leaning on the edge of the desk, and was looking rather amused. Now she opened one of the drawers and got out a little book, tossing it at Marinette. “All the country phone numbers are in here. Knock yourself out.”

Marinette looked through and found the number for her home. Well, one of her homes anyway. But her family hadn’t been staying in Dupain for quite a while now, so Cheng it was.

She dialled the number into Kim’s phone – it was quite self-explanatory to use – and then listened as it rang.

“Greetings, Your Royal Highness, you have reached the kingdom of Cheng. What can we do for you today?”

Phew, it had worked! It seemed impossible that this little metallic box could really contact people instantaneously from thousands of miles away, but it did.

“Hello, this is actually Princess Marinette borrowing Kim’s phone,” she said. “Is it possible I could speak to Felix? Or my parents?”

“I’m afraid they are all asleep right now.”

Drat – the time zones! How could she have forgotten? There was no point waking them up just for a chat, nothing was urgent.

“Never mind, I’ll call some other time,” she said quickly. “Thank you.”

“You are very welcome. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight…”

She handed the phone back to Kim, feeling her heart breaking. It had been so long since she had last spoken to Adrien, and letters were far too dangerous to send, even under the Felix pseudonym. Every second spent apart was just hurting her, so much! At least if he was definitely safe, she wouldn’t mind so much. She missed her parents too, after all. But Adrien… nothing was safe for him. She couldn’t help worrying.

“I can just lend you this some other time too,” Kim suggested, offering a helpful little smile.

“Thanks,” Marinette said, trying to smile back.

“You okay?”

She nodded. She was okay, really, she was. “Just missing my cat a lot.”

Kim leaned down to give her hair a quick ruffle. “You’ll get to see him again soon, I’m sure.”

Thinking about Adrien was not going to help her feel better. She cleared her throat and said, “By the way, how are you and Max getting along?”

It was so sweet to see the sudden glimmer in Kim’s eyes, that blush lighting up his face. At least Kim was happy in love. Good for him. It shouldn’t have to be so painful.

“We’re getting along awesome!” he said, the smile on his face much bigger now. “He’s so cute, and he’s the one who gave me this heart badge I’ve been wearing, and I just can’t believe he likes me back, and he’s just so adorable and amazing and…”

He was staring off into space with a dreamy expression. Marinette couldn’t help but giggle a little. Kim had always secretly been a dreamy dork for as long as she had known him, despite him trying to act otherwise, so it was nice to see him finally embrace this side of himself thanks to Max.

“…I should probably stop now,” Kim said eventually, blushing. “Sorry. I just like him a lot. Um, I’m gonna leave now…”

“See you later, say hi to Max for us,” Alya said, a smirk on her face.

“W-what? Who said I was gonna go see Max right now?”

“No one. But you are, aren’t you?”

“Maybe…”

“Oh, just go hang out with your boyfriend already!”

Kim did not need to be told twice. He sped off out of the room with his phone. Alya immediately wheeled round to face Marinette.

“Sentenced to execution, huh?”

“I was just panicking a lot earlier, I’m sorry,” Marinette mumbled. “I know Kim wouldn’t really do anything like that…”

“That being said, maybe don’t steal people’s phones next time?”

Marinette nodded. “I will never steal another phone in my life. I promise.”

“Good.”

 

 

Kim did indeed go to see Max, though it was partially for practical reasons too. The poisoned chocolates were still looming on his mind, and any second spent not in someone’s company or not doing homework, all he could think about was how much danger he was in. Here in daylight hours it seemed so much more far-fetched – someone who he had never even met was trying to kill him! But it was still terrifying. More so, now that there had been time for it to sink in.

At least Max’s calming influence would help. Spending time with _anyone_ would be preferable to spending time alone with nothing to do, really. And plus, having a sweetheart was really quite nice so far, so he may as well go talk to him…

“Kim, just the person I wanted to see!” Max said as soon as he opened the door. “I’ve been doing some research about the International Alliance and I think it would be beneficial for you to learn about it in more detail.”

So Max was going to talk to him about nerdy things? Yes! Kim just loved listening to Max’s precious voice, he always had done even before falling in love with him. Something about it was just so… soothing. Magical.

“Come in, sit down.”

Max held Kim’s hand and pulled him into the room. It was clear that Max had been doing a lot of research indeed – there were books and pieces of paper strewn all over the floor, not enough space for the desk to hold everything. They sat down on the floor leaning against the side of the bed, much like the other night in Alya’s room.

“If you’re going to join the International Alliance, you have to know a bit about how it works,” Max began. He was still holding onto Kim’s hand, his thumb brushing over it lightly, which was a little distracting. Kim ignored it and tried to focus. “Although the country that founded it was Alix’s, that was a long time ago and leadership has changed hands several times due to popular vote. Currently the leader is Queen Sol of Nubia.”

Kim nodded. He remembered Queen Sol very well. She was that kind, motherly one who had been at the peace conference and watched the lacrosse match. Thank goodness the International Alliance had someone like her as a leader, someone nice, someone who already liked Kim despite his troublemaker personality.

“The International Alliance has several member states that are rather more influential than the rest,” Max continued. “These are the ones whose leaders you should talk to, to get them to agree that Lê Chiến would be an excellent new member to the group. The countries you need to work on ‘impressing’, as such, would be mine, Alix’s, Queen Sol’s, and possibly the Lahiffe Kingdom too. You don’t have to worry about Alix, obviously, she’s already on your side, and I’m sure both Nino and I can get our families to agree. It’s Queen Sol who you will need to work on.”

That wasn’t so bad. At the peace conference she had even said that maybe Kim’s country would be a part of the International Alliance someday. Surely it wouldn’t be very hard to persuade her.

“Unfortunately the new member initiations do not officially take place until September, at which point we will be back at school, and of course you would have to avoid dying before then. But you can get all the paperwork sorted out earlier, such as in the spring and summer holidays, so then you don’t have to worry about it. And of course, I will be coming with you in the spring holidays to help you with anything that you need.”

Kim gave Max’s hand a little squeeze. “You’d really do that for me?”

Max smiled fondly at him, squeezing his hand in return. “Of course I would. I love you.”

How… how could Max just say something like that so casually? Kim was half sure that his brain was melting, or burning, or malfunctioning, or _something_ , and Max was just too sweet, too good for him…

“Oh, and another thing. The spring dance is still a few weeks or so away, I know that, but I would very much like to go with you, considering that we’re sweethearts now and it’s customary.”

Max was asking him to the dance? Kim had known they would be going together, but it was still so far away. And Max was asking him already. Already! And in that typical, matter-of-fact Max style!

“Kim?” Max gave him a nudge with his elbow. “I think I killed you. You’re blushing a lot. It’s very cute.”

Cute!!! Max had called him cute!!!

“Yes!” Kim said suddenly. “Um… yes. I’ll go to the dance with you. Of course.”

“Fantastic! I know it’s a proper formal dance so we won’t be able to do that jive-swing thing you treated Chloé and I to at the opening for the school’s new wing, but it’ll still be better to go with you than with anyone else.”

Why was every single word Max was saying just so nice? Kim would never tire of it. He watched as Max leaned his head on Kim’s arm, the sweetest little smile on his face, felt Max absent-mindedly fiddling with their intertwined fingers, so soothing, so calming, like the world of poison and assassination and war was a million lightyears away.

But still, as flustered as he was, he had to say something. Max wasn’t the only smooth one around, of course.

“Are you gonna wear those green robes you wore at the Peace Ball?” he asked. “’Cause honestly, you looked _amazing_ , and I don’t think I quite managed to tell you properly.”

Max chuckled. “I will if you want me to.”

“I don’t mind!”

“Well then, I will.”

Kim glanced at the clock – he had been planning on going to the gym around this time, though not the treadmills of course. Marinette’s phone theft had distracted him for a while and he was behind schedule. Well, time to get back on track!

He scooped Max into his arms and stood up. “I’m going to the gym, you wanna come with me?”

Max was looking up at him in silence, totally starstruck. Haha, yes! Flustered Max! He had done it! Maybe he should pick up Max like this more often.

“You don’t have to actually do any exercise,” he added, before leaning much closer and whispering, “you can just watch me work out. I’ll be wearing sporty clothes. I know I’m not the only one who think tank tops look good on people, right?”

He put on a dazzling smile and raised an eyebrow for maximum effect. It seemed to have worked, since Max was staring up at him rather dreamily and still seemed too stunned to say anything. Finally Max laughed a little and hid his face in the fabric of Kim’s shirt.

“Alright, I’ll go to the gym with you, I can’t say no when you’re giving me that look…”

“What, this look?” He waited until Max was looking at him again before winking at him as charismatically as he could. Max just started laughing again.

“Oh, Kim! For the record, you don’t need to try to impress me, I’m already impressed. Though your attempts are very cute.”

Max had called him cute again! People very rarely called him that, or at least, not since he was a little kid. Once he got older he was considered far too much of a rebel to be _cute_. But Max… Max thought he was cute…

And now Max put his arms around his neck and said, “So are we going to the gym then, sweetie?”

Pffffff. Sweetie was such a lame nickname. Kim tried to ignore the fact that he was the one who had started calling Max that in the first place, just saying it without thinking. It was lame. So very lame, and adorable, and cheesy, and absolutely perfect for a precious, beautiful sweetheart like Max…

“Yeah,” Kim said, holding Max a little closer. “But I’m not carrying you all the way there.”

“That’s fair enough. I’m sure I can walk all that way. I’m not quite _that_ unfit, you know.”

“You’re perfect, that’s what you are.”

Seeing Max’s flustered little smile sent his heart soaring. A little reluctantly, he put him back down and settled for holding his hand instead. Part of him wanted to kiss Max again, but they had already kissed three times in the past three days, was that considered too much? Was he allowed to kiss him again? Would that be too cheesy? Was he acting like some stereotypical teenager for wanting more kisses?

He needn’t have worried. Max, almost as if he knew what Kim was thinking, stretched up onto tiptoes and gently kissed him once more. It was too good, too addicting, but Kim pulled away before he would never be able to. He was supposed to be taking his sweetheart to the gym, not standing here kissing him!

“Let’s just go,” he said, running a hand through his hair and wondering if Max could tell how weirdly _high_ he felt after every kiss. It was something he doubted he could put into words. Instead he held Max’s hand tight and pulled him along with him, out of the door and towards the gym.


	49. Flower Pharaoh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me, watching the Gigantitan episode: HOLY MOLY I FREAKING CALLED IT

The weather over the next several weeks seemed to be rapidly improving, despite the fact that it was still winter, astronomically speaking. Princess Marinette had been throwing all her energy into making edible treats for her fellow students to stave off her heartsickness, and Aurore and Mireille responded in kind by keeping the school relatively warm, sunny and dry. Her new reputation amongst both the royalty and nobility was as the “cookie princess” – one that she very much liked.

Marinette was not the only one with an interesting new reputation, though. Pharaoh Alix quickly discovered that her efforts to decorate the fountain had not gone unnoticed by everyone.

“Those nobles over there seem to want to talk to you,” Mylène said, tilting her head towards the other side of the path where there were indeed a few shy nobles hanging about, nudging each other encouragingly.

“Maybe it’s you they want to talk to,” Alix replied. Usually when she and Mylène had their regular skating lessons – which was mostly just an excuse to hang out with each other now – no one ever tried to speak to her. She might have blamed it on her being a higher rank than everyone else, except for the fact that she knew her intimidating personality and venomous pet cobra were more to do with it.

“Let’s ask them!” Mylène suggested, before turning around and waving at the nobles. They reluctantly came over, throwing out mini curtseys and quiet mumbled greetings.

“My friend here wants to ask something,” one of them said. She nudged the other one forward, who turned back to give her a quick glare.

“Go for it!” Mylène said, the friendliest of smiles on her face. It was odd seeing her so confident when speaking to nobles, considering how timid she could get around fellow royals. “I’m always willing to answer any questions!”

“Oh, um, it’s not for you,” the noble said, curtseying again and pulling her friend down with her. “It’s for the pharaoh.”

Oh, so Mylène had been right after all. The nobles were glancing nervously at the snake wrapped around Alix’s neck.

“Just go ahead and ask,” she said. “The snake’s not gonna do anything. Chill out.”

The nobles did not look reassured. All the same, one of them said, “Is it true that you’re the one that put all the flowers on the fountain?”

“Um, yeah? With some help, though.”

Now the nobles were looking at her in awe. “Whoa… you’re the Flower Pharaoh…”

“What do you mean? They’re just flowers, it’s not a big deal.”

“We were just visiting the fountain now, because we heard the tales,” the other noble said. “They say that you put all those flowers on there the day before the Cupid Festival, and now thanks to the way the weather’s been, they’ve gone all dusty and black and shrivelled but they’re still there.”

“Huh, I guess I should go take them off then–”

The nobles began shrieking in protest, almost completely unintelligible.

“No no no don’t–”

“Please don’t destroy the gothic fountain reputation–”

“Black flower dust is punk now–”

“You can’t be Flower Pharaoh if the flowers are gone–”

“Alright, fine!” she said, hoping these shrill nobles would shut up a bit. “I’ll leave the dead flowers on there if it makes you happy.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty!”

“Whatever.” She turned to Mylène. “Should we go check out the fountain then and see what these flowers look like now?”

“Sounds good, Flower Pharaoh!” Mylène replied.

Flower Pharaoh… weird. Giving nicknames to monarchs, like “Queen So-and-so the Wise” or “King McEvil the Terrible” was considered old-fashioned back home. Monarchs were just people, like any other citizens. Not mythological beings with divine powers or whatever. Apparently, though, people from other kingdoms or empires still did that stuff.

It was… kind of cool, actually. Having a flower reputation would be harmless, wouldn’t it?

“I like this nickname.” Alix turned to the nobles. “Tell everyone I’m the Flower Pharaoh. I want an awesome reputation. I’m a snake-whisperer and I can like, totally bless people by throwing flower petals on them. You got that?”

They nodded frantically, their eyes lighting up.

“We’ll tell everyone we know, Your Majesty!”

“And you don’t have to call me Your Majesty,” she added. “Seriously, you can relax. I’m not gonna set my snake on anyone, I promise. He’s too nice to hurt anyone.”

“And so are you!” Mylène said, giving her a pat on the arm.

“Yeah. So am I.”

Thinking back to the start of the last school year, when Mylène would sit right at the edge of the desk in fear, or recoil at every word Alix said to her, or run off quickly at the end of each lesson and staying well out of her way as much as she could… things really had changed for the better. Part of that was certainly to do with Mylène becoming a more confident person and refusing to back down from things that scared her. But maybe some of it was to do with Alix too. Friendship wasn’t nearly so difficult these days.

“We’ll go have a look at that fountain now, thank you for speaking to us,” Mylène said to the nobles, clearly making an effort to sound as regal as possible. They nodded and backed away, curtseying again. Seriously, all that curtseying, wasn’t it bad for their knees? They really didn’t have to do it that much.

For once Mylène led the way to the fountain. She was much more balanced on her skates now, zooming ahead with no fear. Apparently she had been attending duelling club too, along with Sabrina. Everyone seemed to be branching out a lot this year.

Sure enough, the flowers at the fountain had mostly decayed, leaving the structure covered in what looked like black leaves. Hardly any had fallen off – Aurore and Mireille, the weather countesses, had made sure to keep away the cold winter winds, in exchange for more food from Marinette.

“This honestly looks more like you decorated this fountain for Juleka and Rose than Kim and Max,” Mylène said, hands on her hips as she looked up at it.

“Well they were the ones who told me which flowers to buy…”

“You did a really good job!”

“Couldn’t have done it without your help. And the rest of the Royalty Squad.”

Mylène chuckled. “Is that what we’re calling our class now? The Royalty Squad?”

“Lila said that’s what the nobles call us behind our backs, so why not?”

“Royalty Squad. I like it.” She nodded. “Our class is such a team now. Everyone seems to like each other. I guess that’ll do wonders in terms of future alliances when we’re all rulers like you are, Alix.”

Alliances… rulers… oh snap, that reminded her – she had to call Jalil and check how he was going with all that International Alliance business that needed to be sorted out, so that Kim could maybe _try_ to protect himself against assassination attempts. The sooner, the better. Thinking about those poisoned chocolates still filled her with rather murderous impulses.

“I’ve gotta go,” Alix said quickly. “Just remembered I have to call my brother, because… reasons…”

“Oh, no problem! And thank you for the skate lesson! Same time next week?”

“Yep. Oh – and not that you would, but uh… don’t go to the big balcony thing behind the new gym right now. Not until like… later.”

“Why not?”

Alix grinned. “Kim took Max there for a ‘picnic date’ because of the nice weather, and I’m guessing they haven’t left yet. Probably best not to interrupt them.”

“I’ll stay away, I promise!”

“Good. See you later, Mylène.”

She scooped up a handful of black flower petals from the bottom of the fountain, then skated off, letting them trail away behind her as she did so. If “Flower Pharaoh” was her new reputation, she may as well revel in it!

 

 

Kim and Max’s picnic date had ended, though they decided to stay here on the large, open balcony anyway. Previously this area had been completely off-limits since it was too close to the sheer drop that led to the river – colloquially called “the moat” – but the new wing’s construction now allowed people to visit and marvel at the view. Luckily not many did. It was nicer to spend time here now, rather than the fountain, which was quickly becoming a bit of a tourist attraction thanks to those flowers.

Lazy, warm afternoons like this had always been idyllic. Plenty of times Kim and Max had spent them together doing homework outdoors, or perhaps just chatting. This time Kim had decided to read a book. His attention span wasn’t normally good enough for such a thing unless it was for homework, but maybe with Max here it would help him. Max was reading a book too, after all, though one that was much longer and looked way more boring.

Not much time had passed before Kim put the book down, bored. He lay back on the tiles and stared at the clouds above, trying to think of what shapes they might be. There was one that looked like some kind of creepy-crawly… and that one there looked kind of like a cat… that one was a fox…

It wasn’t long before Max too had put down his book, preferring to spend this beautiful afternoon cuddling in his sweetheart’s arms. Kim could still hardly believe it – how was it possible that someone he cared so much about could feel the same way in return? Surely the chances of that had to be one in a million. Less, even.

Still… Max really did love him. Max loved him so much he was willing to spend so much time with him, wanting to be with him, feeling that same spark in his heart that Kim did when looking at Max! How was he so lucky that Max felt the same way? After all, Kim’s crushes on Chloé, Adrien, Alix, the Bell twins, and so many others had not worked out. And yet things just felt so easy with Max. So natural.

Even better than pillows…

“What are you thinking about?” Max mumbled, almost sleepily, lifting his head enough for Kim to see his face clearly.

“Oh – um…” Kim knew he must be blushing. Thinking about pillows just had that unfortunate effect on him. “I was just… well, not that I want to kiss you again, but… well maybe a little? But I promise that’s not why I like you! It’s just kissing’s kinda fun sometimes! So like – uh, if you wanted to we could – well it’s up to you but like it would be nice and all – I don’t know, your choice–”

Max rolled his eyes and muttered, “Oh Kim, just _kiss me_.” Without waiting for a reply, he leaned down and pressed his lips against Kim’s.

Wow… what was it about kissing Max that always made it feel so special? Something always felt so enchanting about it. Perhaps it was just the knowledge that Max wanted this as much as Kim did. Well, whatever it was, it was making time slow down again, more and more, practically grinding to a halt, every second feeling like an eternity…

And this time, neither of them pulled away. Kim hugged Max even tighter, so close, tracing his fingers over the fabric of Max’s shirt, feeling the brooch pressing into his shoulder. He had no idea how much time was passing, but he knew for sure it was longer than it had been before. And he just did not want to stop.

Other than his pillows, the only time he had kissed anyone for this long had been at the winter party. But that was different. It had been so superficial, so meaningless, so devoid of emotion. Fun on the surface, but ultimately it didn’t mean anything to him.

And yet now, the fact that this wasn’t just anyone he was kissing, it was _Max_ , his sweetheart, the boy who loved him back… It felt so different in the best way possible.

The strangest thing was, it was slowly becoming apparent to Kim that Max knew exactly what he was doing. Of course, the guy had probably studied kissing enough to be able to write a thesis on it. But the way he’d occasionally break off to whisper sweet little things like “I love you so much!” into Kim’s ear, sending tingles up his spine, or the way his lips would take lazy detours onto the rest of Kim’s face and neck…

Surely it had to be deliberate? There was no way Max could just know exactly what he was doing so easily. Either he was somehow even smarter than Kim thought, or he’d had help. And that help was probably from Alix, considering the winter party and the other timelines.

Well, whatever. It didn’t matter. All that mattered right now was Max – this precious, wonderful, amazing Max, who Kim just couldn’t get enough of. And clearly Max couldn’t get enough of him either. Somehow, despite everything else happening, for just this one afternoon everything was perfect.

 

 

 

The spring dance arrived sooner than anyone realized. For once it really did feel like spring, what with the blossoms starting to grow on trees and the daffodils popping up everywhere. As usual the event was formal and mandatory for at least an hour.

“Leave immediately after the hour’s up,” Alya told Kim firmly, in the privacy of his bedroom where no one else could hear them.

“Why?” he asked. “Is it that assassin guy again?”

“I can’t be sure. But it’s better to take precautions. I have indeed hired Theo back as a double agent but he hasn’t been completely open with me, so I’d rather not trust him too much. I can’t tell you the details. The point is, _make sure you leave_.”

Kim gulped. This was all so ominous. He watched as Alya put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him, not really feeling it. Thinking about assassins numbed his brain out at this point.

“You’ll be fine, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you. But you have to trust me, and you have to do what I say. You’ll leave the dance early, right?”

He nodded.

“Good. It’ll probably be boring for you anyway, just like the formal dances always are. Though I suppose this time you have Max to slow-dance with, so maybe it won’t be too bad…”

Oh yes, of course, Max. The thought of him always warmed Kim’s brain up, even when there was an assassin on the loose, even though the danger was far too real to be comfortable.

“How are you so good at all this spy stuff?” he asked.

“I have to be. Césaire is not like other kingdoms. You have to watch your back if you don’t want to end up with a knife in it.” With that, she turned and left.

A knife in the back…

Was that better or worse than poisoned chocolates?

Kim shivered, and it was nothing to do with the temperature. Being a prince was like having a giant target painted on your back at all times. Would he ever have faced these problems if he were a commoner? Or would he be worrying about other things, like trying to get enough money to put food on the table, hoping to survive the next flu pandemic? Maybe trying to avoid death was just a _human_ problem in general, whether royalty or not.

Then again, how could someone willingly be an assassin? Or willingly order someone’s death, someone completely innocent? Well, Kim assumed he was fairly innocent. Maybe he was an idiot sometimes, but not a bad person, right? He didn’t deserve to be _killed_ , did he?

There was no point dwelling on it for now. Time to go get ready.

 

 

 

Formal dances were always boring, and the spring dance was widely considered to be the most boring one of all. Nothing interesting to do, always the best manners expected everywhere, and worst of all, the music choices were bad enough to convince one to set their ears on fire just to get away from the dreary screeching horror of it.

That was why this year, things were going to be different.

“First you spill a drink on Mendeleiev, and she’ll have to go get changed, which leaves me free to sneak past into the backroom and plug in the stereo,” Nino whispered.

Alix nodded. Nino was nowhere near as good at cool secret plans as Alya was, but at least he was trying.

“And then your snake climbs up the rafters and unscrews the chandelier, so it falls in front of the musicians and they freak out and run away.”

That was going to be a disaster, but hey, at least it would be fun to watch.

“Meanwhile you go get the mixtapes I stashed at the back of the food cupboard earlier. The guards should have abandoned it to clean up the chandelier so your coast will be clear.”

“We really don’t need that step, I can make the guards do whatever I want, I’m an expert at intimidation.” She held up her palm – still slightly scarred from when she had grabbed the sword blade to save Adrien all that time ago.

“But we need the musicians gone, so the chandelier has to fall. The guards getting out of your way is more just a bonus convenience thing. So yeah, you get the mixtapes and bring them to me, who by now should have unrolled the extension cord and brought the stereo out to behind the musician area. Then I’ll put in the tapes, your snake will drop the stage curtain from above so no one can see me and try to stop me, and you go to the back of the hall and turn on the speakers. Then you give me the signal.”

“What’s the signal?”

“A text message, of course. Kim isn’t the only one who got a new phone in the holidays. Anyway, then I put a Jagged Stone tape in the stereo and it’ll blast through the speakers, so these poor saps can get a taste of some actual lit music for once in their lives and our buddies Kim and Max can have their jive again.”

This was a bad plan, certainly, a very bad plan. But what was the worst that could happen? Detention, probably. That wasn’t the end of the world. It would be fine. A bit of fun was exactly what everyone needed right now.

“Sounds good,” Alix said, fist-bumping him.

“Awesome, dude. Let’s go.”

They headed off in their separate directions.

 

 

The first thing that went wrong was Lady Mendeleiev. Alix pretended to trip over and spill a drink on her, but the darn teacher just moved out of the way at the last second.

“I would highly suggest you clean that up,” Lady Mendeleiev said, her tone biting.

“But… um… I’m allergic to strawberry juice. I can’t go near it.”

“Then I fail to understand why you were carrying a glass of it.”

“’Cause I was taking it to my friend Kim…”

“It looks to me like he already has one, as I can clearly see over there, Your Majesty.”

How was it possible that someone could say the words “Your Majesty” and still make it sound like an insult?! Alix saw Nino tiptoeing along behind Mendeleiev towards the backroom. Right – never mind about getting the teacher to go away. Best idea was to stall her for now, long enough for Nino to get past unseen.

“Oh, you’re right!” Alix said, putting a fake-surprised look on her face. “Looks like I need to get my eyesight checked or something, right? I didn’t even see that, what a dork I am…”

“As far as I am aware, your kingdom is one of the most advanced in terms of healthcare and gives you regular check-ups when it comes to eyesight and dentistry, so it seems astonishing that your vision has deteriorated so very quickly to the point where you completely miss something so obvious.”

Oof, ouch. Was it morally okay to use her status as pharaoh to yell at a teacher?

She caught sight of Nino again and took a deep breath. No messing this up now. Yelling could wait.

“Maybe I’m just really tired,” she said quickly. “Haven’t had much sleep. Lots of homework, you know.”

Lady Mendeleiev looked down at her sternly. “There has been neither more nor less homework than the usual amount. If I may suggest practising the skill known as _time management_ , Your Majesty?”

Ugh, this was getting tedious. Alix already hated talking to teachers, and especially this teacher in particular. She took a swig of the remaining juice in the glass before muttering, “Yeah, I’ll try.”

“Is Your Majesty alright? I believe you just ingested a significant amount of the juice that you are allergic to.”

Oh shoot – she had totally forgotten she’d said that!

“Um, turns out I was mistaken, this isn’t strawberry juice after all, it’s coconut!” she said hastily. Nino was out of sight now, having safely made it, so her job here was done. “And it was great so I’m gonna go get some more so goodbye…”

She walked off as quick as possible. Coconut juice, really?! Was that even a real thing?

 

The next thing that failed to go off as planned was the chandelier. Alix stood watching from below, her pet snake just about visible up there on the ceiling beams – ones that reminded her rather uncomfortably of the balancing beam in the inevitable detention awaiting her, to pay for all her antics today.

The snake seemed to be struggling with the chandelier. It spun it around in one direction several times, but that didn’t seem to make a difference, so it spun in the other direction for a while, though that didn’t change anything either. Then it tried giving the chandelier a vigorous shake. The glass panels rattled but it still did not fall.

By this point the noise was beginning to cause a commotion down below. Some of the nobles were pointing up at the chandelier, watching the snake, more amused now. Even a few of the guards at the side of the room had noticed and were looking upwards.

Not good, not good – there was only one person in school who had a pet snake, and no doubt she would be asked to get him down from there before his chandelier job was done! Time to get out of here. Next stage of the plan couldn’t wait.

She escaped into one of the side corridors and headed towards the food cupboard. There were two guards standing in front of it. She cracked her knuckles – _intimidation time_.

“I really need to get into that food cupboard,” she said.

“Sorry, Your Majesty, we are forbidden from letting anyone in.”

“But I want more food.”

“There is already a large amount of food on the tables out in the hall, so…”

A huge amount of stubborn responses rushed through her head. _I don’t want to eat food that’s been touched by those lowly nobles! Do as I say, I have more authority in my little finger than anyone else at this school does in their whole body! Do you know what this headdress means? I am a divine pharaoh, hear me roar!_

Yeah… those all sounded pretty mean.

“Look,” she sighed, “me and my friend are playing a practical joke kinda thing because everyone at this lame dance is bored to death and I swear I’m not gonna rat you out or force you to obey me because I’m a monarch, just _please let me in that cupboard_.”

She hadn’t really expected it to work. But the two guards looked at each other, grinned, then stepped aside to leave a space.

“Go ahead, Your Majesty. You students aren’t the only ones who are bored.”

Yes, thank god! She rushed past them and opened the doors. Most of the cupboard was filled with food, of course, very tempting food that smelled delicious, but she ignored all that and went for the tapes that Nino had hidden in the corner. There were three of them, so she shoved them in one of her pockets and then headed back to the main hall.

The first thing she noticed was that the snake had still not managed to unscrew the chandelier, which meant that the poor underpaid musicians were still there playing that vile excuse for music. The second thing she noticed was that Nino had been caught coming out of the backroom with the stereo and seemed to be getting a stern telling-off from Lady Mendeleiev.

Time for desperate measures.

Alix went right up to the musician area and then pointed at the floor yelling, “THERE’S A GIANT SPIDER THERE!”

The effect was immediate. Half the musicians jumped out of their seats, dropping their instruments in panic, tripping over each other in their mad hurry to get away. All the nearby nobles scampered backwards, and entertainingly enough, out of the corner of her eye she saw Kim leaping right into Max’s arms in terror.

Lady Mendeleiev turned away from Nino and headed towards the commotion. “What on earth is going on here?”

“There’s a spider!” the musicians were screeching, in total hysterics now, waving their bows and flutes and whatnot in the vague direction of the area beneath the chandelier. Lady Mendeleiev walked over there and began looking for the non-existent spider. Meanwhile everyone else was watching intently, half in fear, half in amusement.

Alix ran over to Nino. “Snake couldn’t undo the chandelier so I had to improvise… anyway, here are the tapes.” She dumped them in his hands. “Looks like you’ll have to find somewhere else to play your music from ‘cause the musician area is currently under scrutiny for an imaginary spider.”

“Thanks, dude, you’re a real one.” He ruffled the tuft of hair sticking out from beneath her headdress. “I’ll go find a hidey spot. Meanwhile you go turn on the speakers and then message me so I can start playing the music. Got that?”

“Got it.”

“Neato. See you later, partner-in-crime!”

He walked off with the stereo. Alix cut her way around the crowd of nobles and made it to the back of the room without any more mishaps, somehow, and turned on the speakers. There! Something had actually gone according to plan for once! She pulled her phone out of her pocket to let Nino know…

Only to realize that _she didn’t have Nino’s number_.

Duh.

And she had no idea where he was hiding.

_Oh come on!!!!!!!_

A few swear words later, she managed to calm down enough to think about what to do. Alya would know his number, right? Alya knew everything – and especially everything to do with Nino.

Scanning her eyes across the crowd, she saw Alya standing not too far away, watching her already, smirking.

“Alya I need your help,” she said, going over immediately. “I need Nino’s number ‘cause I kinda lost him and I really really need to talk to him.”

Alya took a lazy sip from the glass in her hand. “Let me guess. He’s roped you into helping him with his music plan.”

“How do you know?”

“There’s no point asking me that, because I never tell my ways. But you’re in luck this time. The answer is quite simple – he tried to get me to help with the plan first. But I told him it was a disaster waiting to happen, as fun as it sounded, and to go for someone more willing to get themselves into trouble. Like you.”

“I’m not willing to–”

“Yes you are. And plus, I’m a little busy tonight. Keeping an eye on some people. For protection purposes.”

Protection purposes… Kim, that must be for Kim.

“Fair enough,” Alix said. “But seriously, can you give me Nino’s number?”

“Hmm… you’ll have to give me something in exchange.”

“No, I’m not bloody telling you what happened in that lift, okay?”

“That’s not what I’m after this time, since I know you’ll never tell me that. I want to know something else. Something that’s nothing to do with you, don’t worry, it’s just a matter of curiosity. Now, I believe you’ve been keeping in touch with your brother back home, haven’t you? For certain reasons? But I’m sure you must discuss matters other than that too, such as world news, things that he can find out over there much quicker than we can all the way here in the north. So tell me – what are these rumours concerning the musician Jagged Stone?”

Just that? Oh, thank goodness. Alix had been hoping Alya wouldn’t ask something she wouldn’t want to answer.

“Jalil says Jagged Stone’s eloping with Queen Sol’s daughter,” she replied. “Well, eloping maybe isn’t the right word, since Sol doesn’t mind at all. I don’t think she cares if Princess Penny marries a prince or a rock star. And apparently Sol’s gonna be very busy in the next month or so, making arrangements for weddings, doing damage control for those who don’t approve of royals marrying commoners, stuff like that, which means the chances of her being around to help with International Alliance stuff is pretty low…”

She didn’t say anymore, not here where anyone could hear. Queen Sol would certainly be too busy these holidays to help Kim with an alliance, which was really a shame, since that might mean the difference between life or death for him, and she had no idea.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Alya said. “Anyway, give me your phone. I’ll type in Nino’s number.”

Alix handed her the compacted sceptre. Alya put the number in, then gave it back.

“Here you go. I hope your plan doesn’t backfire spectacularly.”

“It already has a bunch of times, but thank you.”

Alix quickly sent a message to Nino, walking away as she did so, wondering when she’d hear the rock music start playing, looking forward to the stunned looks on everyone’s faces when their spring dance turned into something they could never have imagined–

Only to walk directly into Lady Mendeleiev.

“Was it you who started the spider rumour?”

“Uh…” Alix quickly stuffed her phone back in one of her pockets. “…What spider rumour?”

“A spider rumour that would have been _very hard to miss_ , Your Majesty, unless you were either out of the room before the mandatory one-hour attendance period was over, or are extremely inattentive and oblivious to anything going on right in front of your eyes.”

“Okay, okay, I started the rumour. But there totally was a spider there! I swear there was.”

“There was not. You seem to have been very sorely mistaken.”

“Well… maybe it ran away?”

Lady Mendeleiev put her hands on her hips and stood up yet taller, towering over her like a scarecrow. “I think not.”

Uh-oh, she was in trouble, she was so in trouble. Maybe she could think of a way out of this? This happened all the time with the guards back home, and she had all sorts of excuses… fake excuses… ones that never worked, and she got grounded… yep, she was definitely going to get a detention this time, that was for sure…

There was a crash behind her. She turned around to see the chandelier in pieces on the floor, everyone staring in shock. The snake was slithering over to her at top speed and had curled its way up onto her arm within a few seconds.

Alix barely even dared look back at Mendeleiev. She didn’t have to, though, to hear the ice in her voice, so cold and sharp it cut through the sudden silence audible to every person in the room.

“Was your snake just responsible for dropping that chandelier?”

Well… yeah…

Alright, there was no excuse that could get her out of this one. This time, she was well and truly _screwed_.

At that exact moment, the iconic electric guitar riffs of Jagged Stone’s new album began surging through the speakers at top volume. Everyone covered their ears in shock – it was so loud the very floor seemed to be shaking. The bad acoustics caused the sound to bounce off the walls continuously in every direction until what was once distinguishable was now just a cacophony of noise.

Yep, the plan had failed pretty magnificently. There was only one thing for it.

“Flower Pharaoh out!”

She threw out a handful of flower petals she had been keeping in her pocket for situations like these, then turned around and sprinted out of the hall as fast as she could.

 

 

Detention was inescapable, that was for sure. It was probably just better to accept it. She didn’t stop running until she made it to the royalty dorms where she saw that–

Kim? What was _he_ doing here?

“Why aren’t you back at the dance?” she snapped, finally stopping to catch her breath.

He seemed bewildered. “Alya told me to leave early!”

Oh, so it was Kim who Alya had been protecting. Made sense.

“And also I didn’t want to go near that spider,” he continued, crossing his arms. “Not that I’m scared of spiders.”

So the whole plan was for nothing? Even if the music had sounded good in that cursed hall, Kim wasn’t even _there?_ Who was Max supposed to dance with then?!

“There was no spider, Kim.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” She gritted her teeth. “And I am in the biggest trouble I’ve ever been in.”

“Pffffffff, can’t be any bigger trouble than I’ve been in, ‘cause you know me.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Sure. I’ll give you my last chocolate bar if I’m wrong. I kinda hate chocolate these days anyway.”

“Kim, I got on the wrong side of Mendeleiev like three times by first trying to spill a drink on her and then blatantly lying loads, tricked guards into letting me into the food cupboard, was complicit in a plan that probably deafened anyone standing within three metres of the speakers, caused a mass panic with the spider thing, threw flower petals at a teacher, oh, and my snake dropped a _fucking chandelier_ right in the middle of a _fucking crowded dance hall_ during an awkward silence with nobility and royalty from _every fucking country in the vicinity_ knowing what I did and Mendeleiev’s probably gonna tell my dad and I won’t be allowed to bring my snake back to school because I’m a _fucking idiot_.”

He blinked a few times. “Uh… you didn’t need to swear so much…”

“Fuck you, I do what I want.”

She pushed him out of the way and walked past him, not stopping until she was in her own dorm and had locked the door behind her.

Right from the beginning, back when she had started at this school, she knew that her snake being here was a risk. Everyone was afraid of the poor thing. Thinking the worst of it. She had almost not even been allowed to bring it along. But she had hoped that maybe, by showing everyone that it was completely harmless, it would be allowed to stay.

And now stupid recklessness had probably ruined that! She wasn’t trying to do anything bad, so why did stuff like this still happen? Was she not thinking things through enough again? Was she already on the path to another bad timeline, one where her chandelier-dropping snake would be forced to stay at home, far away from her, with no way for her to protect it?

Her phone started ringing. Huh, it was Nino. What did he want now?

“My dude, that was the raddest thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” he screeched as soon as she picked up. She could hear a Jagged Stone track playing faintly in the background.

“What was?”

“I was up on the side balcony to play the music, I saw the way your snake crashed that chandelier and then you threw those petals and made your exit! You should have seen the way the nobles were cheering!”

“Wait, what?”

“They totally loved it too!” Nino’s voice was overflowing with pride and admiration. “Everyone was shook and I managed to turn down the music enough for people to actually hear it, and they all started dancing, and Mendeleiev was actually _laughing_ , I’ve legit never seen her do that before, didn’t even think she could. But yeah! I guess I might get in trouble for actually making the plan but as for you, I think your audacity might’ve saved you, ‘cause I’m pretty sure the nobles would _riot_ if their Flower Pharaoh was put into detention for being so iconic.”

Mendeleiev, laughing? The world ending was more likely than that. Alix barely even allowed her hopes up.

“So you think I might not be in trouble?” she asked.

“Nah, dude, you were way too cool for that. The spring dance is boring. That was the break everyone needed.”

“But it was your plan, not mine!”

“The spider and the flower petals certainly weren’t my plan, even if the Jagged Stone was. And I could never have pulled it off without your help. So thanks for that.”

“Hey, no problem. But seriously, you think they’ll let me keep my snake at school even after the chandelier thing?”

“They’re not just gonna tell a monarch that she can’t have a pet, are they? I mean, can they even do that?”

She smiled, feeling much relieved. “No, they probably can’t.”

“Then I guess your snake’s cool.”

“Awesome. Thanks, Nino.”

“No worries, Flower Pharaoh. And if I don’t see you before the holidays start tomorrow, have a good time.”

“Yeah, you too. See you.”

She hung up, then gave the snake a little rub on the head.

“We sure had a lucky escape today, didn’t we pal?”

The snake hissed gently, resting its head on her shoulder. Well… maybe _luck_ wasn’t the right way to put it. It was her reputation that had saved her today. The nobles actually liked her. They weren’t afraid of her. And neither were her fellow royals, considering all those friendship stickers that she couldn’t bring herself to throw away. People actually _liked_ her!

So maybe she wasn’t doing such a bad job after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never swear... like, NEVER, not even in writing... but this ridiculously long monster of a fic is driving me so mad I dropped like four f-bombs in one sentence omg it's 2am I'm gonna regret this
> 
> (Also next week it's technically ML Crackmas so please don't expect a chapter that's anything except stupidly silly)


	50. Rated T for Terrible

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no words... and the only excuse I can offer for this is that it's technically Crackmas week right now... Anyway this chapter is so unnecessary I wasn't even gonna write it but having been a Chronic Third Wheel all my life, I have seen and heard real life stories that haunt me so much with how idiotic they are that I need to inflict them upon you unfortunate readers too. Like, I was thinking of calling this chapter "Rated T for TOO MUCH INFORMATION" because I did not need to know about the Vacuum Cleaner Incident or the Unexpected Period or the... yeah I'm gonna stop there, there's no way I'm pushing this poor fic up to "Rated M for Madness", so at least die happily with the knowledge that you were saved from the worst of what I could have put in here. YOU WERE SAVED BY HOW ACE I AM. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN MUCH, MUCH WORSE. TRUST ME. AND I REALLY HOPE THE PEOPLE WHO THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO DON'T SOMEHOW READ THIS FIC BECAUSE I WILL DIE OF SHAME.
> 
> Back to good stuff next week, I promise <3

The spring holidays began shortly, and much like last year, Kim went to stay in Alix’s kingdom. Unlike last year, however, Max was with him now. And of course, this time Kim wasn’t doing it by choice. He was here because it was his one chance at staying alive.

Or so he thought.

The first thing he found out after getting here was that Queen Sol was far too busy with arrangements for her daughter’s wedding to be able to speak to him about possible alliances any time soon. Even sending a message to let her know how serious the situation was would be too dangerous, with spies from Agreste potentially everywhere. He would just have to wait it out.

Over the first several days, Jalil gave him a lot of International Alliance paperwork to read through and sign. Kim hated it – he didn’t understand most of it, even with Max’s help, and Jalil often stood outside the study door on guard to make sure Kim didn’t just skive off and go do something else. He was certainly more vigilant about it than the actual palace guards, which was a little unnerving. And this stupid paperwork was the most tedious, boring thing in the world! Wasn’t there an easier way to get official country alliances? What about a pinkie promise, or a blood pact? Surely no one would ever dare break those…

 

 

One late evening he returned to his room after a long day of signing contracts and simply curled up on the bed without even bothering to take his shoes off or turn on the air conditioning first. What a miserable day! Wallowing in overdramatic misery, he almost ignored the knock on the door, hoping whoever it was would assume he was already asleep and just go away. No such luck. Whoever it was just kept hammering away, stubborn jerk.

Kim pulled himself to his feet and went over to the door. Maybe it was Max? Hopefully it was, it would be nice to be able to spend some time with him other than just using him as a dictionary. Kim had already been planning plenty of cute things the two of them could do together once they had the time. Plenty of dates, plenty of compliments, plenty of kisses, definitely no chocolate…

He opened the door to see that it was not Max, it was Alix. Ah well, that was still good. He had barely even seen her much over the past few days, or that pet snake of hers. In fact, he almost missed both of them.

“Max tells me you hate the paperwork so much you want to set it on fire and throw it out of the window,” Alix said, “so to save you from the boredom, we’re gonna have a sleepover again. Like last year except with Max too. Come on.”

Without even bothering to wait for a reply, she grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room, ignoring the stunned expressions of the nearby guards. Last year she certainly would not have been so open about doing things she wasn’t allowed to, like having sleepovers or movie nights, but maybe the incident with the chandelier at the spring dance had got rid of the last ounce of care that she had. Kim still wished he had been there to see it – according to Max, it had been very entertaining.

Hang on a second… this wasn’t…

“This isn’t the way to your room,” he pointed out, still being dragged along by the arm, too tired to protest that he could walk by himself.

“We have to get food first. And you’re helping me carry it ‘cause we gotta have enough for Max too. He’s setting up the TV.”

“You’re stealing food again? Can’t you just ask for it?”

She looked back at him and grinned. “You asked me the exact same thing last year.”

Oh, yeah, he did… Yikes. He really did not like thinking about this time last year. Though at least he had been a lot safer back then, even if he had been so much more of an embarrassing fool…

They reached the empty kitchen, dark with all the lights off, sneaked around the guards, and made their way to the back of the room and into the pantry. It was fairly small in here with shelves of various dry food everywhere.

“Will we get caught?” he asked, thinking about those guards nearby. Hopefully he wouldn’t get in trouble, since he was a foreign guest and all that, but just in case he did, he really couldn’t afford to lose favour with the people of this country if he wanted an alliance with them…

“Nah, we won’t,” she replied, pushing some jars aside to get at the popcorn bowls behind them. They weren’t even high up but she still had to go up on tiptoes to reach, considering how small she was. Kim was tempted to help but it was honestly kind of funny to watch her struggle. Her snake was trying to help her, without much success.

“Are you sure? You’re not even trying to be quiet.”

“If the kitchen’s closed, no one comes in here. You could spend all night here and no one would notice. Also if you time it right you could hang out in here all afternoon eating raw rice and jam or whatever else is in here. It kinda depends what the dinner menu is too. Or just bribe the guards with food. No one cares really.”

She knew far too much. If she wasn’t a monarch she would make a pretty good criminal, wouldn’t she?

Well, at least they wouldn’t be caught blatantly stealing food in here. It was quite cosy, actually. Maybe during the daytime he could hide from that paperwork in here. With Max, too. Yeah, that would be awesome! Just him and Max… alone together… in this little pantry…

“Don’t even think about it,” Alix snapped.

“What?”

“I know perfectly well you’re planning on bringing Max here to use this place as a secret make-out spot or something, well _don’t_. Because I’ll end up walking in on you when I just want to eat food and it’ll be the pillow thing all over again.”

Why did she have to bring up the pillow?! His face was going red and he knew it. There really was no point hiding anything from her.

“How did you know I was thinking that?” he asked, crossing his arms.

“Um… other timelines.”

Oh. Forget that, then. Kim hated thinking about the timelines – he didn’t even fully understand it. But now that there was a timeline out there where Max had _died_ , eating those poisoned chocolates for him, a timeline so tragic that Alix had pretty much forbidden anyone from asking her about it directly… well, it did not sound like a fun superpower to have.

“Anyway,” he said, deciding a change in subject was probably the best choice, “I’m not actually gonna bring Max here just to kiss him, this is a pretty lame place for a romantic date. It’s just some stuffy cupboard. And plus…” He felt his face warming again. “…I’ve already kissed Max a lot, I mean… about once per day? I dunno, I guess that’s a lot… so I’m not gonna just… do that here too…”

Once per day on average was about right, as long as he conveniently ignored that picnic on the balcony which maybe counted as about twenty in one. That was a statistical outlier, it totally didn’t count. Mathematically and stuff. That was what Max would say, right?

Alix had started laughing. “Pfffffff don’t worry, that’s nothing. You should see what you were like in the other timelines.”

The timelines again! What was the deal with them? Why hadn’t she ever properly explained what she was talking about?

“Stop being so cryptic about these other timelines!” he said. “Can’t you just tell me what happened in them? I don’t mean the chocolate one, I already know about that… I mean the other ones. Like you already told us one time you died by snakebite and another time you ended up under house arrest and in another one you abdicated the throne and escaped, and I know you said in all those other timelines we’re betrothed for some reason but you never explained _why_ , and honestly it’s kinda annoying–”

“I am protecting you by not telling you,” she said, turning to face him and leaning against the shelves behind her. “If you knew everything you would want to go back in time and punch yourself, because it’s just that embarrassing for you.”

“Seriously?! What could be more embarrassing than the pillow thing?”

“Trust me. You don’t wanna know.”

“Yes I do. I’m curious now. Tell me everything.”

“Are you sure?”

She was smirking, which was always a bad sign, but he ignored it.

“Yes. I’m sure.”

“Alright then. I guess Max can wait a little longer.” She pulled the compact sceptre-phone out of her pocket and typed a quick message to Max, smiling much too evilly, then put it away again. “So where do I begin? What did you wanna know about exactly? Death by snake venom?”

“Yeah, I mean, how did that even happen?”

Part of him really was reluctant to find out. Max and the chocolates was already haunting him too much on top of everything else, he didn’t need this adding to it. But the curiosity was killing him.

“To be honest it’s getting hard to remember that timeline,” she said. “Maybe ‘cause I’m dead in that one so it’s like… fading away, or something really rad and sci-fi like that. But yeah, basically in that timeline for some reason I didn’t have a pet snake. This little snake here was still living at the pond the whole time. And then I finally found him and took him in during the spring holidays, but secretly, since having a venomous pet cobra is not exactly legal. And then at the start of the summer holidays he… well…”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to talk about it,” Kim said quickly. The deaths of that timeline probably affected her just as much as the poisoned chocolates did.

“It’s okay. All I was gonna say is that I was put under house arrest and forced into betrothal with you, then the guards found my snake and thought he was a wild dangerous one so they beheaded him, and my resulting temper tantrum ended up with me being pretty much locked in this wing of the palace with no escape or control over my future or contact with anyone.”

Wow, okay, that was… very depressing. He didn’t even know what to say.

“It gets worse,” she said, somehow smiling despite the horrific things she was talking about. “From what I can remember I had a load of cool adventures trying to escape. Disguising myself, trying to ninja fight my way out, attempting to bribe the guards, heck, attempting to _seduce_ the guards… and then eventually I just snuck into the kitchen and got a knife to the cook’s throat and threatened to kill them unless the guards moved out of my way, it was wild and also probably super hardcore. I think they were all secretly rooting for me to successfully escape by that time.”

“You threatened to kill someone?!”

“I wasn’t actually gonna do it, jeez! I say I’m gonna kill people all the time, it’s just how I talk! Anyway, then I did manage to escape but obviously they sent guards after me so I hid at the snake pond for a while, but they caught up anyway so I hid in the bush where the cobra nest was ‘cause I knew they wouldn’t go in there, and then predictably I got bitten because that was a stupid thing to do, and they took me back to the palace but had no antivenom so yeah. Bad ending.”

Yep. Definitely creepier than the chocolates.

“Did it hurt?” he asked, regretting it as soon as he saw the brief frown on her face.

“Queen cobra venom is the second highest rated venom on the international pain scale, to answer your question. And it certainly took a lot longer to end than Max and those freaking chocolates. Escape from house arrest was _not_ worth that, no matter what.”

She was looking down at the back of her hand, rubbing at it a little, and the snake was curling itself tightly around her arm in support. Kim couldn’t help it – he leaned down and hugged her.

“You deserve so much better than a horrible death like that…”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, gladly hugging him back, “which is why I am actually trying to learn from my mistakes and not do things that will cause horrible deaths. So yeah, that’s the timeline where I died but was also kinda hardcore. What else did you wanna know?”

He let go of her and stepped back again. Now he wanted to know something cheerful, that was for sure. But then again, literally anything would seem cheerful in comparison to hearing his best friend rather nonchalantly talk about having her pet killed and then dying very painfully after months of isolation.

“There’s something I still don’t get,” he said. “How the heck did you get forced into a betrothal with me? I mean, I know I liked you back then but I wouldn’t have agreed to that, and I know at the winter party you kinda implied that in the other timelines I had managed to make a move or something back in the spring holidays, but then how did that not happen in this timeline, I’m so confused…”

She smiled rather suddenly and cracked her knuckles. “Are you really, really sure you wanna know? You’re gonna wanna kick yourself, it’s that bad.”

“Um… yeah. I do wanna know.”

“Well don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She crossed her arms, that knowing grin still there. “Okay. So you remember how in the spring holidays I took you rollerskating and we went to the pond?”

He nodded, already not liking where this was going. The thing he most remembered about that was being overly flustered at the fact that she was wearing a tank top, and holding his hands to help him balance, and he’d had such a big crush on her that it almost felt alien to remember considering how differently he felt now…

“Well in the other timelines I didn’t take the snake to the pond with me,” she continued. “It’s to do with butterfly and a Monopoly game, don’t ask. So anyway. In this timeline, with the snake there, you never made a move so I guess the snake must have distracted you or something. ‘Cause in the other timelines the snake wasn’t there, and you asked for that very delayed mistletoe kiss.”

“Oh… that…” He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. A mistletoe kiss months after the winter had passed, in the middle of a desert with no mistletoe around, honestly…

“Yeah, that. And I’m a totally oblivious idiot who didn’t even realize why you were asking, so I did do it because I didn’t think it actually mattered. And then you asked for another, so I did again, and then another and another and yeah wow I was really oblivious. I just thought you wanted practice or something.”

He barely managed to hold back a laugh. If he wanted practice, he had pillows! Not that those were any less embarrassing…

“And then you did confess that you liked me and had done for ages,” she said. “Which really shouldn’t have been as shocking to me as it was, looking back. But I was too worried you’d stop being my friend if I turned you down because I didn’t have the time to think over it properly, unlike in this timeline where I found out ages later and you ran away to hide, so in the other timelines I just… yeah. Didn’t wanna hurt your feelings. So I just agreed to be your sweetheart like some kind of _idiot_.”

Wait, wait, wait… _what?!_

“I wouldn’t stop being your friend!” he insisted, not even knowing where to begin. “In fact that’s why I didn’t even say anything for ages, it’s because I didn’t wanna ruin things! And what do you mean _sweetheart_ , I thought you were aero… aerodynamic… aeronautic…”

“Aromantic,” she said, cracking a smile. “But I didn’t know that back then, did I? Look, you’re not the only one who’s stopped being so idiotic since last year. Thinking before acting is neither of our strong points. Anyway, things get much more embarrassing for you from here and you’ll soon regret even asking me about this. Sure you want me to keep going?”

“Of course,” he said, not really meaning it, but not wanting to back down now. Prince Kim never backed down from anything. “And I still don’t get how I ended up betrothed to you. Surely just being your sweetheart wouldn’t cause you to be forced into something like that, would it?”

“Shush, I’m not there yet.” She cleared aside some of the jars on the shelf behind her and then sat on it. “First of all, I just wanna tell you this: don’t worry about your relationship with Max. Seriously. I know you’re nervous about it and not sure if you’re doing anything right or whatever, but trust me. You are being fantastically sensible right now with him compared to how you were with me in the other timelines. By a very long way.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. Things with Max did feel perfect, but he was never completely sure if he was about to accidentally screw things up considering just his whole personality in general. At least now he knew he must be doing a fairly good job.

“So what was I like in the other timelines then?” he asked, trying his best not to sound as uncomfortable as he felt.

“Totally reckless and ridiculous. Like, more than usual. Where do I even _begin?_ Okay, snake pond, let’s see, this is so weird to think back on… Well, you wanted to kiss again but that sounded boring so we went back to the palace and then just like this timeline, I tried to beat my time around the courtyard, except in the other timelines I gave the stopwatch to you so you could time me. But you were too busy being lovestruck to do it properly so I told you to go away and I just did it myself.”

“That’s not too embarrassing.”

“I know. Just wait.”

Uh-oh, he remembered all too well what happened next. It was embarrassing enough in _this_ timeline, let alone the others…

“So then the sports bra thing happened,” she said, leaning back against the wall and looking far too smug. “Except you didn’t need to run away because you didn’t need to hide how super awesomely hot you thought I was, since I already knew. What I didn’t know was that people who somehow actually enjoy kissing don’t just exist in movies. And I would have just stopped and told you to go away if you hadn’t made it into a freaking _competition_ , because remember, I was very much an idiot too back then. And that was how in this timeline I can guess exactly what you were up to with your pillow waifu.”

A rush of heat flooded his face. “Don’t bring up pillow waifu, that’s all – that’s all over now – I swear I don’t do that now–”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’ve got Max.”

“That’s different!”

“Good, I should hope so. We were super late to dinner that day and you barely saw Max at all, since you were so reluctant to leave my room. Honestly, thank god I was on my period and extremely cranky about it or you might never have left…”

What was she implying?! Far too many memories of last year were coming back to haunt him, memories of Jalil figuring everything out and hunting him down, giving him a lecture, and also telling him to be safe and…

“Whatever, just carry on!” he said quickly, sure he was blushing hard.

“Alright, but here’s where it starts to get even worse.” Even she looked a little uncomfortable now, he was delighted to see. “I didn’t even bother looking through the timelines at this stuff until more recently, I’d literally subconsciously blocked the memories, it’s that bad. First things first, you wanted to name your hickeys and were very annoyed that you couldn’t.”

Oh drat, thanks to those stupid timelines, she _knew_ about that? He had wanted to do that for ages now, one of those super-secret inner thoughts he wouldn’t dare tell anyone no matter what! Well… at least she hadn’t said “hockeys” this time…

“Why couldn’t I name them?” he asked, his voice sounding oddly squeaky. But no – he had to at least pretend to be calm about all this. No freaking out.

“Because I refused to give you any because that’s gross, duh. So then you went and got a vacuum cleaner and attempted to use it on your own neck like a total _moron_ , because you never think before you do anything, ever. It was a good thing it got stuck to your hand first and you realized perhaps this was a very painful and bad idea. And then you named your fake hand hickey Kim Jr.”

For several seconds he just stared, half his brain insisting she must be lying, because that could not possibly have happened. There was no way. No way at all.

“You should see the look on your face,” she chuckled, shaking her head. “There’s so much more.”

“You’re not making this up, are you?” he managed to say.

“I swear I’m not. I couldn’t make this nonsense up if I tried.”

“Mmm… okay…”

“What else is there? Oh yeah, there was also the time you thought it was somehow a good idea to make out at a museum, and if I hadn’t dragged you away then the paparazzi would have had a field day with that, and maybe it would be a good idea to have dates in a place that fiends with cameras can’t get to unless you want your royal reputation ruined and your private life out for everyone to see.”

Kim silently crossed off the “take Max to the city museum and make out with him” bullet point from the checklist of dates he had been building in his brain. These timelines were hitting way too close to home on some things.

“Oh and here’s one of the worst ones,” she said, her grin now looking downright cruel. “You were trying to show off at me by climbing the north wing tower in the middle of the night with no safety equipment whatsoever, which is difficult enough in the daytime, trust me on that. So I had to chase after you with a rope and sorta saved your life and managed to pull you up to the top of the tower.”

“I can totally climb that thing though, I know I can!”

“If you say so… In fact, your excuse was that your vacuum-injured hand, Kim Jr, had betrayed you, but you didn’t care that much anyway because apparently it was super _romantic_ of me to rescue you like that, so then you uh… well…”

“I get it,” he said grumpily. “Then I was an idiot and like, made out with you on top of the tower or something, right?”

“Oh no, it’s way worse. Let’s just say up there on that tower, that was the night I learned what people at school mean by ‘second base’, and you got a nasty surprise when you realized I was still on my period. Even though I had literally been complaining about it all day.”

The moment it registered in his brain, he covered his face with his hands in shock. “TOO MUCH INFORMATION, ALIX, I REALLY DID NOT NEED TO KNOW–”

“Well you’re the one who asked! And seriously, you think that was bad for you? What about _me?_ Throwing up over the edge of the tower because _ew_ , and you didn’t even notice because you were too busy lamenting your poor Kim Jr’s betrayal, and how your hair was not windswept enough when it should be windy on top of a tower, and how you totally could have climbed it yourself, and other stupid selfish stuff–”

“Why didn’t you just dump me on the spot?! Listen I’m not even gonna lie, I’d just dump myself if it was me.”

She shrugged. “Didn’t wanna break your heart, I guess? And anyway I didn’t know being aromantic was a thing yet, I thought maybe you might fix whatever defect made me like this. But I also kinda didn’t want you to, I’m sort of proud of not really being into anyone, as weird as that sounds. I don’t know. It was a confusing time for me, okay? Even in this timeline where nothing happened.”

He nodded. That was surprisingly depressing, but if she had admitted it so casually then either she was over it, or she just trusted him a lot, maybe both.

“Anyway, that’s not all,” she said, that cursed smile returning to her face. “You always hated spending time in either of our rooms because Jalil knew everything and he was always checking up on us like the sensible babysitter he is, so you very much liked this pantry instead where there were no sudden interruptions. That’s why I guessed you were thinking about bringing Max here too. But please don’t accidentally smash any of the glass jars in this timeline because you think you spotted a spider and leapt onto the shelf, and it wasn’t even a spider, it was a peppercorn or something.”

Kim just didn’t say anything. There was no point denying his fear of spiders when she so obviously knew otherwise. There was no point denying anything, really. She knew _way_ too much.

“I’m not even finished, I hate remembering all this but seeing the look on your face is making it worth it, this is genuinely hilarious. Okay, so the first time I legitimately considered just dumping you was when I realized you were more into sports bras than actually into me.”

“That is blatantly untrue.” No use denying it, of course, but he still did it by instinct.

“It’s true, like… god this is so weird to say but… you told me to put it back on right after you took it off because it’s just better apparently, and you always grumbled so much if I wasn’t wearing one under my shirt, which is actually pretty often, and I was genuinely thinking of just wrapping one around your neck and strangling you to death so I wouldn’t have to deal with your nonsense but knowing you, you’d probably have thought that was _cool_ or something…”

“ANYWAY,” he said loudly, very much not wanting to think about sports bras, “how does any of this stupid stuff link to the betrothal thing? Being a ridiculously bad boyfriend is no reason for me to be betrothed to you…”

“Ugh, fine, I’ll tell you. I don’t even know how to put this. Um, hang on a minute…”

She jumped off the shelf and onto her feet, having a quick look around before pulling a bottle of something out from behind the flour bags and holding it up at him.

“Look at this bottle. Are you seeing it?”

He nodded. What was she doing? It was just a bottle of some goopy stuff. He looked at the label – _Extra Virgin Olive Oil_ , apparently. Normal cookery things.

“Imagine this is me now, and in the other timelines, imagine this was me before my period ended. And then…”

She covered up the first two words on the label.

“…imagine this was me _after_ my period ended, thanks to you. And I’m assuming the same goes for you too.”

It didn’t take long for him to figure out what she was saying. And as much as he had secretly been expecting that to be the case, just refusing to really think about it, it still weirded him out way too much.

“You were right, I regret asking you about this, I didn’t need to know,” he said, very much trying to keep his voice sounding calm. It wasn’t really working. How were the nobles at school always so chill when talking about stuff like this?! He had heard them, plenty of times! Everyone had! Was it a royalty thing to think things were way more awkward? Or was it just because this was his friend he was talking to, someone he was long over like that…?

“Exactly,” she said, putting the bottle back down. “Anyway, so then I ran off to the pond for a while to sulk, which is why I had a dream about that in this timeline when we were having our sleepover. And then I came back and dumped you immediately, and was not exactly quiet when telling Jalil off for not warning me that things would be awful, so everyone overheard. By the time I got back in the summer the gossip had spread all the way to my dad so bam, I was grounded indefinitely. And a stupid old-fashioned rule we’ve got meant I was automatically betrothed to you. That’s the story.”

So that was it. What a mess.

“I think your snake distracting me in this timeline probably saved my life,” he muttered.

“Yeah, probably. _Luck_ saved us from that ridiculous disastrous excuse for a relationship. But I’m not relying on luck any longer, and I’m glad you’re not either. You and Max… you guys are good for each other. He stops you being so reckless. You help him connect with his emotions. It works. And not because of luck.”

Thinking about Max seemed to propel him right back into real life, away from the stupidness and somewhat nostalgic idiocy of those other timelines. She was right, wasn’t she? Kim did fit very well with Max, and it was more a personality thing than anything else. No wonder they’d been best friends for years even before falling for each other. Somehow they just went well together, no matter how.

Alix waved a hand in front of his face. “Dude? Are you daydreaming about Max again? That’s one stupid thing you do more often now than you did back then, I’m pretty sure.”

Kim turned away, his cheeks blazing. “Max is really cute, okay? And I love him a lot. I don’t care if it sounds cheesy. He’s awesome and smart and kind and cool and cute and…”

“…and he’s waiting for us, so we should probably take this food with us and get going.”

“Yeah, let’s go.” Anything to get out of this pantry, which he would probably never be able to visit ever again without an overwhelming sense of embarrassment. He’d just have to find somewhere else to hang out with Max where no one could interrupt, and somewhere that Alix wouldn’t accidentally ruin their dates because she wanted food and preferred to steal it rather than asking for it.

Hmm… the top of the north wing tower was always an option… and the Kimax one month anniversary was coming up very, very soon… maybe it was time to start planning something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the vacuum cleaner story is real. I'm sorry. I had to put it in here. I just had to.


	51. One month

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas!! Have a lot of cute Kimax fluff!

Kim, with Max’s help, had finally managed to finish going through all the International Alliance paperwork that could be completed without Queen Sol here for the time being – and just in time for their one month anniversary! Max was already certain that Kim had been secretly planning something for it, despite it being a relatively small milestone. Unexpectedly, however, Kim’s plans for 14th March started off with something that was much more of a surprise.

“Max, you’ve gotta see this,” Alix said, barging into his room and grabbing the remote control to turn on the television.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Yeah, whatever. Look at this – this dork is on TV and he didn’t even _tell me_ until like 10 minutes ago when I asked why there was a TV crew in the main hall!”

She changed the channel to the news, sitting down beside him on the bed where there was a better view. Max looked up at the television to see the vaguely familiar face of one of the news reporters for this region of the continent.

“…and today we have a very special guest star on our show!” the news reporter was saying. “A foreign prince from a faraway country is here to tell us his exciting tale…”

Kim was going to be on TV? He was actually going to be _on TV?_ Max leapt to his feet, a grin spreading over his face.

“This is fantastic! What a great idea! If Kim tells his story to the millions of viewers, they’ll be more sympathetic to his plight and there will be far more pressure on the International Alliance to accept his country – well as long as he doesn’t spill all the details of course, as that would be unwise, but I trust him to know what to–”

Alix shoved a pillow in his face. “Dude, shut up and listen!”

Max put the pillow aside and watched the screen. The reporter – Clara? – was still giving a rather rambling introduction, thought she finally seemed to be winding down. At last, she gestured to the side and announced, “A very warm welcome to our esteemed guest today, His Royal Highness Prince Kim of the distant kingdom of Lê Chiến!”

The camera cut to a wide shot to show that Kim was sitting in the armchair beside Clara’s. His hair was done immaculately, he wore an áo dài almost more dazzling than the one he’d lost in the lacrosse match to Adam, he sat back in the chair with his hands behind his head and one foot stretched out to rest on the little table in front of him, just giving off a sense of being at ease.

“Thank you for that super introduction, Clara. And hello Sahara region, thanks for tuning in!” He looked directly at the camera and winked, shooting a lazy finger gun as he did so.

Max found himself picking up the pillow again and clinging onto it without realizing. He had always found television appearances stressful, with so many things that could go wrong, so many ways for millions of people to get the wrong impression of you. But Kim didn’t appear to be nervous at all. Perhaps he didn’t quite know the scope of television, how much of an impact it could have… or perhaps he was just a natural at this.

“So, let’s get started with what the people want to know most,” Clara was saying now. “What’s keeping you away from home? Why so often do you visit other countries during your holidays from boarding school? There are suspicions that perhaps you don’t like your kingdom back home very much and prefer more tech-advanced nations – is this true?”

“My kingdom is awesome, actually. After all, I’m the one who’s gonna be running it someday, right?” He flashed a charming smile at the camera again. “But you’re right about me loving tech. Television? Aeroplanes? Portable phones? Modern automobiles? You bet I’ll be implementing that in my own kingdom as soon as I can.”

“Technology certainly is a wonder! But if that isn’t the reason that you haven’t returned home in such a long time, then what is?”

“Unfortunately it isn’t safe. There have been issues at the borders for way too long now, and as much as I want to go back, I can’t. Not that anyone would let me try – no one wants to see me in danger.” He ran a hand through his hair, which sprung right back into perfect formation as soon as his fingers had left it.

“So it’s an issue of security, I see. Any chances that will be fixed soon?”

“No idea. But hey – if anyone out there invents the teleporter, be sure to let me have a go with it and get back home in one piece!”

Every time Kim glanced at the camera with that charismatic smile of his, raising a playful eyebrow, or letting his teeth catch a glint of the light… oh, he knew what he was doing. He knew how attractive he was and he was using it. There was no way the viewers wouldn’t love this cheeky, handsome little prince who just needed a hand getting back home – and he was doing it on purpose!

Max rested his head on the pillow he was still clutching and just stared. Usually Kim would be a little too flustered to act quite so smooth with him, which was cute in its own right, but now Max could not tear his eyes away from Kim’s flawless responses, the confidence, the charisma, the beauty of it all. His sweetheart was a _star_.

The more political questions had ended now, and Clara began asking more about Kim as a person. This was right in his element – showing off about his athletic capabilities, how quick a runner he was, even mentioning that if his áo dài didn’t have sleeves then he would have flexed his arms for all those viewers who he knew were itching to see it.

“Wow, you really are quite something!” Clara said. “All the ladies in your kingdom must be quite taken with you.”

Kim chuckled. “Who isn’t?”

“So, does a handsome young man like you have a sweetheart?”

“Would I tell you if I did?”

“Only if it wasn’t a commoner!”

_Or if it wasn’t a boy,_ Max thought to himself. While Kim did not keep his relationship with Max a secret while at school, where everyone already knew about Juleka and Rose or Chloé and Lila and hardly cared about yet another such couple, mentioning it directly on international television to millions of viewers was something else entirely.

“So how do you decide which countries you stay in during the holidays?” Clara asked now.

“Oh, well, it depends really. At school I made best friends with Alix – yeah that’s right, my best friend is _Pharaoh Alix_ , and also her pet snake, so she lets me stay here whenever I need to. And Princess Marinette has been a close childhood friend of mine for many years now, so I’m allowed to visit her kingdom too. And as for Prince Max…”

Max’s heart skipped a beat. It seemed so odd to hear himself being talked about on TV by _Kim_ of all people.

“…we’re very close. He keeps me company in the holidays, which I really appreciate. He’s a very sweet friend.”

Sweet friend? Max wanted to laugh. That was such an obvious way of putting it, and poor Kim had no idea he’d even done that. No doubt, by tomorrow everyone would have come to their own conclusions about what “sweet friend” really meant – and hopefully not disapproving!

“That’s very nice to hear!” Clara said, a surprisingly genuine smile on her face. “Prince Max is well-loved by his people for his wise, gentle ways. I’m sure they’re delighted to find out how close the two of you are, despite your differing kingdoms and personalities.”

That much was probably true. Max did indeed have a rather high approval rating back in his own country, and now that some of those citizens would be watching this interview, Kim’s popularity would probably begin rising too if his good looks and personality hadn’t already helped with that.

Oh Kim, he was always just so sweet!

The rest of the interview carried on without anything especially remarkable. Max was simply content to watch – maybe it was silly, maybe self-indulgent, but he really _liked_ seeing Kim being so enchanting, practically flirting with the camera, really putting on the charms. All those winks, the finger guns, the cocky smile, the hand he ruffled through his pointy tuft of hair, the occasional blown kiss…

And it ended before he knew it. How long had that interview lasted? Max was rather bad at keeping track of time whenever Kim was involved, for some reason. But now Clara had said goodbye and moved onto the next news section.

“So how was that?” Alix asked, switching off the television again and poking Max in the arm. “Did he mess up on anything?”

Max sighed, still staring at the empty screen. “No. He was perfect.”

“Damn right he was. He called me his best friend! On international telly! Isn’t that awesome?”

“Yeah…”

“And he seemed to answer all the politics questions really well, though I’m probably not the best person to judge that. Right?”

“Mhm…”

She poked him again. “You’re not listening, are you?”

“Um, well, I was just–”

“Daydreaming about doing some _scientific research_ with Kim, yeah, I know.”

Max could feel his face warming up. “I’m sorry. It’s just that today, 14th March, marks a whole month since Kim and I got together, and the thought is rather distracting.”

“A month, only? Feels like it’s been way longer than that already.”

“It’s the opposite for me.” Max leaned on the pillow again, his mind flowing with memories. “It feels like it’s flown by.”

“Well, if it really has been a month, then I guess you should go find Kim and–”

The door was suddenly flung open and Kim stood there, leaning over to catch his breath.

“Kim!” Max jumped up off the bed and threw the pillow aside. “We just watched your interview!”

“Awesome!” Kim said. “I literally just finished it, ran all the way here.”

“But why–”

Before Max could say another word, Kim had already crossed the room and scooped Max up into his arms. “Happy one month anniversary! I had to rush over here to hang out with you!”

Oh, that was just so sweet! Max put his arms around Kim’s neck and leaned into his chest, feeling right at home there like he always did these days. “Happy one month anniversary to you too, Kim. Though the word ‘anniversary’ really only applies to yearly celebrations, because of the prefix, which comes from the Latin… oh, never mind. We can call it an anniversary.”

“You’re so smart,” Kim whispered into his hair, holding him so close it was practically a hug. “And so cute. And the nicest person ever. I love you so much, you know that, right?”

“Can you guys go be mushy somewhere else?” Alix said, sounding bored. “Or I’ll leave if you want. Either’s fine.”

Kim put Max down, settling for holding his hand instead. “No, it’s alright, I have somewhere to take Max anyway. Somewhere super cool. Come on, sweetie! Let’s go!”

He ran off without even waiting for a reply, and Max let himself be pulled along by his adorable, hyperactive sweetheart. Most of the servants in the corridors didn’t care at this point – they probably all knew that Kim and Max were a couple anyway. Max wondered how long the rumours would take to get back to his kingdom, probably accelerated by the interview today.

Would it be worth it to publicly come out?

Well, that wasn’t something he needed to think about right now. At this moment, all that mattered was whatever Kim had planned for him.

They went up the swirling staircase in the centre of the north wing tower, all the way to the top, so tall that Max had to stop a few times to rest. Finally they made it and went through the door out onto the roof at the top.

Max had only been up here once before, several years ago, when he was visiting this kingdom with his parents, and Alix had sneaked out of a boring meeting with him and Nino – who had still been called “Nina” back then – and brought them up here to hide. It still looked the same, really. A view of the palace below them, with desert and mansions stretching off into the distance in one direction, and the city in the other.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Kim said, holding Max’s hand a little tighter as he leaned against the railings.

“It really is a stunning view.”

“But you know what’s even better? This!”

From out of his pockets Kim pulled a little piece of card and handed it to Max. On closer inspection it was not a card but a photograph. A photograph of _Max_.

“Remember this?” Kim continued, now putting an arm around him. “Last holidays I took this picture of you and it turned out really awesome! Well I want you to have it.”

“That’s very sweet, but you’re the one who took this photo, so perhaps you should be the one to keep it.”

“I already have a copy. One of the servants taught me how to use the photocopier, so I can have as many pictures of the cutest person in the world whenever I want.”

Cutest person in the world! Max was sure his heart was going to burst. Kim was always saying such lovely things to him all the time, how did he even do it? Did he know what an effect it had?

“And I got you flowers too,” Kim said, blushing slightly. “Not with me, but I’ll give them to you later. Actually now that I think about it, I probably should have gone to my room first and got those, rather than going straight to your room, but I just really wanted to see you…”

“You don’t need to give me flowers, it’s alright!”

“But I want to. You deserve it.”

“So anyway, about that interview!” Max said quickly, aware that he was rapidly becoming very flustered. “When did you even organize it?”

“Oh, that! I literally just thought about it last night. I realized doing a TV interview would make me look really cool and then everyone would like me and let my country in the International Alliance. So I went and asked Jalil, ‘cause he’s organized and knows about all this stuff, and he called the news crew and they happily agreed to interview me on short notice since I’m a prince and everything.”

“That was a very good idea, I must say.”

Kim ran his free hand through his hair, the action somehow looking even more attractive than usual considering he was still wearing that new áo dài, leaning back against the railings, the sun lighting up his face. “Thanks! So um… how was the interview? Did I do okay?”

“You were amazing!” Max turned to stand directly in front of Kim and took both his hands in his own. “Your answers to all the questions were absolutely spot on. And your demeanour in general was very…”

“Likeable?”

_Hot_ was actually the word he had been thinking of, but he just nodded. “Yes. You were very likeable.”

“Awesome!”

“I’m sure the people of the region must love you. We’ll wait to read about it in tomorrow’s newspapers, I suppose. And…” Max looked down, smiling. “We’ll get to read about what everyone thinks of the phrase ‘sweet friend’.”

“Oh, that!” Kim’s voice had a note of uncertainty in it now. “Listen, I just – I didn’t know whether or not I should tell anyone about, like, _us_ I guess! I mean, I wanted to, but I thought what if that’s a weird thing to say on TV? What if you get deposed or something? So I just said you were my friend and I hope that’s okay!”

“Of course that’s okay!”

“Thank goodness! And for the record, I still meant it, okay?” Kim gently held Max’s face in his hands, looking right in his eyes, his voice softening now. “You’re still my best friend. You can be both my sweetheart and my best friend at the same time, right?”

For a few seconds Max just stared up at him, unable to say a word. Kim’s face was very close to his own, and it was making him dizzy. Surely he should be used to it by now? It had been a month already! But no, his brain still took several seconds to process the fact that Kim was only a few centimetres away, and knowing him, was about to get even closer.

“Certainly,” Max managed to say finally. He willed his brain to work enough to say something else too, because Kim liked listening to him speak, didn’t he? “In fact, I would say that’s ideal. Anyone who is considered a sweetheart should be close enough to be a best friend too.”

“Yeah, you’re right. No wonder Chloé turned me down ages ago. I’d met her like twice.” Kim laughed and shook his head. “I was such an idiot back then. But I hope I’m better now. And hopefully the countries in the International Alliance think so.”

“I’m sure they do. How could they not? You’re wonderful!”

Gushing did not come as naturally to Max as it seemed to for Kim, but he made an effort now all the same. It was worth it to see the sparkle in Kim’s eyes, the lovestruck smile, the blushy glow on his cheeks, knowing he had made his sweetheart happy. And plus, it was true! Kim really was wonderful.

“I can’t argue with that,” Kim said, winking, before pulling Max’s face closer and kissing the tip of his nose. “So. What else should we do today, on our one month anniversary? I was thinking maybe a trip to the museum or something! You like museums, don’t you? It would be fun! And the city tower has a restaurant on the top floor so I could take you there in the evening for dinner and we could watch the sunset. And then we could come back and watch a movie or something. What do you think?”

A date that lasted the entire day? That was so sweet, it was almost too much! Max just buried his face in Kim’s chest, grinning stupidly. “That sounds very romantic…”

He felt Kim’s arms wrap around him. “Of course! Only the best for you. And let me know if you want anything else.”

“No, it sounds perfect.”

“Awesome! There’s only one problem, though. According to Alix, there’ll be paparazzi at the museum and probably the tower too, like there always is when we go into the city, so um… no kissing while we’re there.”

“Understandable.”

“So then maybe we should just…” Kim put a finger under Max’s chin and lifted his face back up to look at him. “…kiss now instead?”

That was the thing – Kim was always just so polite about it, always asking Max for kisses, so hesitant about it in a way that he never was about anything else. All it did was make Max fall even further in love with him. Not only was Kim a star, Kim was a star who was _all his_. And no amount of interviews or commoner admirers could ever change that.

Max went up on his tiptoes and leaned forwards, closing his eyes, putting his hands on Kim’s shoulders, half tempted to just take his glasses off just so this could be a little closer and last a little longer–

“Oh come on!”

They sprung apart and turned towards the doorway to see Alix standing there, a hang-glider strapped to her back and a helmet on her head, a _very_ unimpressed expression on her face.

“What are you doing here?” Kim snapped.

“Hang-gliding, duh!”

“Well can you leave?”

“What? Why can’t _you_ leave? I can’t hang-glide from anywhere else, whereas you two can easily go make out in one of your rooms, in fact, you can even do this magical thing there called _locking the door so that no one can accidentally walk in on you_ –”

“But that’s not very romantic!”

“Kim, it’s alright,” Max said, trying not to laugh. “I know one of the guest rooms has a balcony, which I’m sure is very romantic too. We can have palace dates there and Alix can be sure to avoid it.”

“Okay, I guess…”

“Thanks,” Alix said. “And by the way, happy one month anniversary. I hope you guys have a great day.”

“Aww, thank you! We–”

“Now get out of my way. I have to go jump off this tower.”

Kim took Max’s hand again and together they went back down the tower steps, leaving Alix in peace to go illegally hang-gliding up at the top.

A date in the city… this was going to be so much fun. Maybe it wouldn’t feel particularly different from the rest of the times they spent together, or wouldn’t feel different from when they used to do similar things in the context of friendship. Especially when the paparazzi would probably be watching their every move.

But did that matter? What mattered was that Max was going to spend the whole day having fun with Kim, his _sweetheart_ , and it was going to be wonderful.


	52. The Royal Tour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!! Here is a loooooooooooong chapter :D

Jalil just looked at the cast on Alix’s arm and sighed, disappointment written all over his face.

“Are you going to tell me off?” she asked him. It would probably feel less awful than his silence, somehow.

“No.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Because at this point you’re just a lost cause. Sellotape cannot fix a broken hang-glider.”

“Actually it was duct tape, and I put on loads of it! It should have worked, ‘cause duct tape can fix anything.”

Jalil sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m just relieved it’s only a minor fracture. You could have been seriously injured.”

“I know that!” She tried to lift up her arm to poke him, but even through the haze of painkillers it hurt enough to make her head swim, so she put it back down. “Ugh, this sucks…”

“You bet it does. What are we going to tell dad?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, tell him I tripped over or something.”

Jalil raised his eyebrows. “You tripped over. And broke your arm. By tripping over.”

“Okay, tell him I tripped down the stairs! Just don’t mention the hang-glider.”

“Alright, fine. As long as you do things that aren’t dangerous from now on.”

Like what? Jalil considered anything fun to be “dangerous”, which really didn’t leave a lot of choice. Rollerskating? Not with a broken arm. Monopoly? That could result in death brawls, so also not with a broken arm. Guitar practice? Definitely not with a broken arm! Alix just glared down at the cast on her arm, wishing there was a way to magically fix it. Having this thing on for four weeks was _not_ going to be fun. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, and she always hated it.

“I have an idea!” Jalil said, a smile finally back on his face. “You could always give Kim and Max the Royal Tour.”

Oh yes, that thing. Older parts of the palace were open during the summer months for tourists to learn about the history of the country. Alix had been taught the facts so often she knew them inside-out, although she herself had never actually given the tour to anyone. At the moment only palace residents and guests were allowed into the tour areas and anyway, there was nothing much to do there.

“Max has already been on the tour,” she pointed out. “And I can’t do it today, for starters these painkillers are messing with my brain, I can’t remember a thing. Also Kim and Max aren’t here right now, they went to the city to… uh... platonically hang out…” More like _romantically make out_ , but whatever.

“You don’t have to do it today, of course. You need to rest right now. Do it tomorrow, so you don’t interrupt Kim and Max’s completely 100% platonic event-which-is-not-a-date.”

Despite how fogged up her brain was, she had to smile at that. “I’m not fooling you, am I?”

“No one is fooled, we all saw that TV interview this morning. By tomorrow, the entire continent will have caught on that they’re a couple.”

“Do you think they’ll be okay with it?”

“I think so. You don’t remember because you were very young at the time, but Queen Sol seemed to fare okay when she came out. Max’s approval rating is currently even higher than hers was at the time, so I’m sure the news will be taken well.”

Oh, thank goodness. She did worry for her friends sometimes. Of course Kim’s country might not react the same way, but for the moment there were far more important things to focus on there – like avoiding a war with the planet’s biggest, baddest empire. Coming out could wait.

“Anyway,” Jalil said, “we’re getting off the subject. You have to promise me you won’t do anything dangerous from now on, at least until your arm is healed.”

Alix pouted – danger was subjective! Hang-gliding wasn’t dangerous, she had worn a helmet and she didn’t _die_ , so it was okay, wasn’t it?

Jalil held out his little finger. “Pinkie-promise?”

“What do you mean by dangerous?”

“I think you know what I mean. You had told me you were going to start making an effort to be less reckless, so now I want you to actually do that.”

Well she was _trying!_ Why could she still not do it? She really hadn’t thought about it before attacking that broken hang-glider with tape and then running up to the north wing tower, and she hadn’t thought before setting her snake loose to drop a chandelier in a crowded hall, or sassing a teacher, or getting into a fight during a lacrosse match, or anything at all…

“Am I a bad pharaoh?” she asked suddenly.

“Why do you ask that?”

“Well… I haven’t really done anything good for the country yet, and I’m just… you know… not good at being sensible. And things always go wrong, even when I try to be good. It’s why this timeline right now is literally the only one which isn’t horribly tragic and full of misery and death – because I’m _lucky_.” She tried to cross her arms, only to be painfully reminded that one of them was in a cast right now and unable to properly move. “See, I just broke my own arm and it was my fault. You should have been pharaoh, not me! I’m bad at it, aren’t I?”

Jalil was silent for a few seconds, before simply saying, “My answer is no.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I am. I’m even admitting it. I’m a rubbish pharaoh and inheritance laws are stupid.”

“You leaping off a tower expecting a bit of cloth taped to a stick to save you is nothing to do with being a pharaoh. You’ve already done plenty of things worthy of… a certain ancestor.”

He glanced towards the royal sceptre leaning against the edge of the bed. Alix grabbed it with her non-broken arm and flicked it open, the familiar hologram of the lady holding the clock popping up. She probably hadn’t actually looked like that in real life, but what mattered was what she had done for the country, not what she looked like – and she had done a lot.

“There’s no way I’ve done anything nearly as cool as her,” Alix said, shutting the lid again and tossing the sceptre aside. “Everyone knows how awesome and amazing she was. And what have I done with my life so far? Beat up my best friend during a game of Monopoly, threw flower petals at a teacher, way too much other stupid stuff to mention…”

“Have a think about it,” Jalil said, standing up. “Trust me when I say that you are a great pharaoh. And I’m not just saying that because you’re my sister – it’s true. Otherwise I wouldn’t say it. Anyway, I have to go now, I should probably let dad know why you won’t be leaving your room today – because you ‘tripped down the stairs’. Let’s hope he believes me.”

Yeah, there was no way their father was going to believe that. But there was nothing else to do. Jalil left the room, leaving Alix alone sitting on the bed, the cast weighing down her arm and her mind drowning in crazy amounts of shock and paracetamol. Pain didn’t really faze her anymore. Of course it had hurt when she had landed, it had hurt a _lot_ , but it was nothing compared to snake venom, so whatever…

How could Jalil say she was a good pharaoh though? Who would honestly think something like that? Maybe once the painkillers wore off she would be able to figure out why he thought so, but for now all it did was mix up the wires in her brain even more.

 

 

 

The next morning’s newspapers were all filled to the brim with news about Kim’s interview the previous day. Not only that, but every single one of them seemed to agree on one thing – they all loved Prince Kim to pieces.

Max spread out the newspapers over the table while they were having breakfast. “Look at this! Glowing reports everywhere! This is fantastic, Kim, you’re doing so well!”

Kim wasn’t even looking at the newspapers, he was staring at Max with a very stupid, sappy expression on his face. “Yeah, I am, aren’t I?”

“You are! Several of these make mention of the terrible situation your country is in back at home too, some even going so far as to accuse the Agreste Empire… this bodes very well indeed for your application to the International Alliance…”

“Oh good, ‘cause I don’t want all that paperwork to have been for nothing.” He leaned his head on his arm, still watching Max intently. “And do they say anything about… well…”

“The ‘sweet friend’ thing? A few of them do.” Max held up one of the papers. “They’ve been… um… speculating a bit.”

“Are they allowed to do that?” Kim finally tore his eyes away from Max and looked at Alix. “Can they say stuff like that in the newspapers?”

Alix had mostly been busy trying not to puke – whether that was because she’d still had to take oodles of painkillers to dull the pain in her broken arm enough to function, or because Kim and Max had enthusiastically described every second of their city date to her and wouldn’t stop gazing at each other all lovey-dovey, she wasn’t sure.

“They can say what they want in the newspapers,” she said. Time to get into a tour guide frame of mind and spew nerdy information. “Kubdel has always prided itself on unrestricted freedom of the press since almost the beginning of this dynasty.” More like since a certain hologram pharaoh came into power and started making impressive reforms, something which Alix could never live up to…

“That is so cool. Max, what else do they say? Do any of them mention yesterday’s city date? I mean, I think we avoided the paparazzi, but who knows?”

“A few of them have mentioned it,” Max said. “It just adds to the speculation. Perhaps once I’m back in my own kingdom I’ll be asked about it directly, and I’ll have to officially come out… ugh, being royalty can really be such a hassle sometimes.” He snapped shut the newspaper he was holding and put it on the table. “Anyway! Alix, are you ready to give us the Royal Tour?”

“I guess so,” she muttered, standing up and trying to ignore how stiff and heavy her arm was. “But Max, I know you’ve been on the tour before, so don’t expect it to be the same. I don’t know how to be a tour guide.”

“That’s alright, I’m sure it’ll be even more entertaining with you telling us everything. And please take care when walking, I don’t want your arm getting even worse…”

“Oh yes, because I walk on my hands, obviously, so of course I’ll hurt my broken arm while walking, especially since it’s in a protective cast and everything. That’ll definitely happen.”

Max chuckled. “See what I mean? Entertaining. Your sarcasm will surely make an already interesting history lesson even better.”

“A fractured arm is nothing,” Kim scoffed, getting up from the table, ready to go. “You haven’t experienced true pain until you’ve had a full arm break, like me.”

“Actually,” Alix said, “you haven’t experienced true pain until you’ve been bitten by a venomous cobra, which painkillers and sedations don’t work against, and is widely considered to be one of the nastiest venom deaths to exist. But sure, I guess a broken arm kinda hurts a bit too. Anyway, come on, let’s get this tour started!”

It was impossible not to start grinning evilly, seeing their shocked faces. What – did they think she couldn’t make morbid jokes? Surely they had known her too long to be surprised at that! In any case, her brain was still so fuzzy from the painkillers that it was hard to take anything seriously. She just stood up and walked off, still grinning. The other two quickly followed.

 

 

The old part of the palace was oddly dark and dreary, with a strange lack of modern conveniences that were common in the rest of the palace. The only other people around were the occasional servants doing restoration work or cleaning.

“Welcome to the Royal Tour,” Alix said, standing in the middle of the corridor. “I’ll be your tour guide for today. And also I’m high on paracetamol right now so if I say things that don’t make any sense then please ignore me.”

Max frowned. “Alix, you can’t get high on para–”

“Excuse me, no interrupting the tour!” She bonked him on the head with her sceptre. “This is a _history_ tour. Not science. So leave the scientific facts for school. Okay, so anyway, during this tour I will be telling you the story of the most amazing, awesome, iconic pharaoh to ever exist. You know who I mean, right?”

“Cleopatra,” said Kim.

“NO!” She bonked him on the head too, before opening the lid of her sceptre to show them the hologram. “I’m talking about this lady right here, the great Pharaoh Rania. Not to be confused with the current queen of Jordania who has the same name.”

“Oh.” Kim looked disappointed. “She doesn’t look anything like Cleopatra.”

“Hey, first things first, no one knows what Cleopatra actually looked like! Second, there were like seven pharaohs called Cleopatra, at least specify which one you mean, jeez. Third, does it matter? Rania was so cool and did so much for this country that it was renamed after her. Well, kinda. It was named after the Kubdel dynasty, of which I am a part. So stop bringing up Cleopatra and just follow me.”

She walked them over to a big map hanging on the wall – an old, frayed one that seemed to be missing some of the far off regions of the world, like Antarctica, and had Terra Australis as one huge landmass that covered half the Pacific.

“This map, from 1705, is what people thought the world looked like back before satellites existed,” Alix said, pointing at it with the sceptre and feeling very much like a geography teacher. “As you can see, the Agreste Empire was way smaller back then. Same with Bourgeois and Anglia. However, Agreste was beginning to take land already ‘cause they’re greedy. They already had a lot of southwestern Europe by this point. And all that separates southwestern Europe from our coasts is Lahiffe, Kanté, and a tiny bit of water we call the Mediterranean.”

“The Mediterranean is not tiny,” Max said.

“Well compared to like the mass of the sun, it is tiny. So be quiet. Anyway, ever since your precious Cleopatra died over a millennium earlier and left this country in the hands of the Romans, things had not been going well here. Even long after the fall of the Roman Empire, while Lahiffe and Kanté had organized governments enough to pick themselves up and begin holding out against the threat of invasion from Agreste, this place was still a mess. But not for long!”

“Because Pharaoh Rania swooped in and saved the day?” Kim asked.

“Not yet. There’s some bad stuff first.”

She led them to a display with six shiny headdresses on it – none as cool as hers, obviously, but still cool.

“Next stop on our tour: the beginnings of the Kubdel dynasty. I’m afraid to say it did not start off well. The first pharaoh was just some weirdo who took power during a famine and told the citizens that in order to hold off Agreste, they had to work harder than ever before. And then used that as an excuse to raise taxes and lots of slave labour and other bad things. And then used the tax money to live in luxury while the commoners suffered and were led to put all their blame on Agreste. So yeah, bad things.”

“That is quite an oversimplification–”

“Max, seriously! I told you I’m too high on paracetamol to remember things! ANYWAY, now is where Pharaoh Rania’s story begins.”

She gestured at the six headdresses.

“Princess Rania, as she was at first, was the youngest of the six royal heirs. All of them had special headdresses made for them when they were born because there were no proper succession laws back then – whoever got the throne got to wear their headdress, and everyone else’s just went to waste. Obviously these here aren’t the actual headdresses, they’re just replicas ‘cause the real ones are buried with their owners.”

“Well that’s lame,” Kim muttered. “At least tell me their corpses were mummified.”

“Kim, we are not in ancient times. No one mummifies people anymore.”

“Aww…”

“Moving on. The older siblings all vied for the throne because for some reason they actually _wanted_ the crushing responsibilities of ruling a country and being an assassination target.”

“Or rather,” Max said, pushing up his glasses, “they all wanted the luxury money and status that being a ruler would get them, and also previous pharaohs had disposed of their own siblings for fear of being overthrown or killed for their crown, and these children had learnt to do the same.”

Max just had to know everything, didn’t he?! He would make a much better tour guide. Alix just rolled her eyes and carried on.

“Basically it was a mess all round. At some point the second and third oldest siblings, I can’t remember their names, both died at the same banquet because they’d both tried to poison each other. After that all the kids had food tasters for obvious reasons. And then the oldest sibling – wait, what was his name again?... Okay I don’t remember so I’m just gonna call him Ramses because that sounds sufficiently pharaoh-y.”

“His name was actually–”

“Shut up, his name is Ramses now. So yeah, Ramses managed to kill his parents in a way that no one could prove so technically by ‘divine right’ that made him pharaoh now. And then he exiled the fourth oldest sibling for being a backstabbing, conniving traitor, apparently. Which was probably a lie. And now for the next stop on the tour…”

Rather than walking anywhere, she simply held up her sceptre and pointed at the jewel embedded in the centre of the lid.

“This cool jewel thing. I’m sure it has an official name but I don’t remember it and I don’t care. The point is, this jewel always gets handed down to the next pharaoh in line as proof that the throne belongs to them. Ramses pretty much stole it from his parents. And he was a really bad ruler, he was super cruel and had no idea how to run a country even with a serious Agreste invasion round the corner and it was bad.”

“Like a crueller version of Chloé’s father,” Max explained to Kim. “Unnecessarily high taxes, squandering all the money, messing up the economy, being selfish enough to make the commoners very unhappy, propelling the country backwards.”

“Max, would you like to give the tour instead of me?”

“No…”

“Exactly what I thought. Come on, next stop.”

Now she led them to a hallway that had a full chariot on display. The paint on the sides was partially scratched off from wear and tear, but it still looked magnificent. Alix climbed onto it and looked down on them.

“I’m literally the only person allowed on this chariot, no one else is allowed to touch it. Because I’m awesome and no one else is as cool as me.”

 _“Except me,”_ Kim said quietly, hiding it within a suspiciously fake cough. Alix ignored that.

“So anyway, this chariot belonged to Rania. When she was a young child she was kept very sheltered from all the stupidness and murder going on in her family, since the fifth oldest sibling was actually a decent person and didn’t want more of a mess. What was she called again? Ahmi? Max, is that right?”

Max nodded. “Correct.”

“Good, so I remember at least some things apparently. Okay. The real story begins when Rania was 15 years old, too old to be controlled by her older sister, old enough to start paying attention to politics and realize her big brother Ramses was a total douchebag tyrant piece of sh… shovel. I was going to say shovel. I wasn’t going to swear, I promise, because I’m a good royal child who does not do that.”

Kim just folded his arms and raised his eyebrows at her, clearly remembering the day of the spring dance.

“Anyway,” she hurried on, “she hated Ramses’s policies and tried to make him some actual useful suggestions. Which he ignored and told her to fuck off.”

“Um, didn’t you literally just say that you’re a good royal child who _doesn’t swear?”_

“I don’t remember saying that.”

Kim leaned towards Max and whispered, “I think she really is high on para… paraglider.”

Max giggled. “Paracetamol, Kim… and I think it’s more to do with lack of sleep due to pain, and possibly the pain itself which her mind tries to distract itself from. Whatever it is, it’s fascinating.”

“Oh Max, you’re so smart…”

They were leaning towards each other and – oh god they were going to kiss, weren’t they? Right now? Seriously? In the middle of the tour?

“FINE,” she said rather loudly, startling them apart, “I’m very sleep deprived. But you try sleeping when every time you want to move, your arm feels like someone is stabbing it with a molten fork while punching you. And also no kissing allowed on my tour. Please wait until the end.”

Kim and Max were both blushing, looking in opposite directions. What dorks, honestly.

“Right, now where was I? Oh yeah, Ramses telling Rania to _heck_ off – see, did I swear there? So Rania just complained a lot to Ahmi about it, since Ahmi was a decent person, like I mentioned, but also a coward who didn’t stand up to Ramses at all and was basically a suck-up. And she told Rania to be careful around Ramses, since the dude already had a murder record when it came to relatives.”

“For the record, a lot of this is speculation based on records that could be biased or misinterpreted,” Max said quickly. “But please carry on.”

“Will do. One day Ramses went too far, ordering the burning of a village that happened to be in the way of where he wanted to build a new river palace, as if this one wasn’t enough for him. He didn’t listen when Rania told him not to, so she took this very chariot right here and charged off towards the village, standing outside to block the entrance.”

It was easy to imagine – there had been so many artworks, books and movies about it over the years. The image of young Rania standing there defiantly in a chariot, protecting the people of the village from death and homelessness, was well engrained into the citizens of this country. How could anyone ever outdo something like that?

“When the soldiers arrived to burn the village,” Alix continued, “she refused to move, not wanting to just let people die. When she realized the soldiers seemed reluctant to actually carry out their orders, she used her super cool charisma to try persuading them to at least evacuate the villagers first and help them find a new place to settle. And then Ahmi showed up on a horse with even worse news. First of all, Ramses was super mad at Rania for running off in a chariot like that, ‘cause she wasn’t supposed to ever leave the palace without supervision.”

 _Relatable_ , she thought to herself silently.

“And secondly, he now also wanted to build a shinestone monument to himself outside his future tomb, but the only shinestone in the kingdom had already been used to make a dam that controlled the irrigation of downstream farms, so destroying it would flood the Nile and cause flooding and catastrophe. Like, widespread famine and stuff.”

“What’s shinestone?” Kim asked.

“Stone… that shines.”

“Okay, I got that, but I meant like what material…”

“It’s stone. That shines. Shiny stone. What’s the question here?”

He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“Good. So Rania now had two problems to sort out, and had to do it without encountering the murderous wrath of her brother. So she told the soldiers – who had overheard everything, including her indignant reactions to all the injustice – that if they went against their orders and spared the village, she would take the blame herself, so please think about it. Actually she made a really cool speech, I don’t know it off by heart, but some historian or someone wrote a paraphrased version of it and it’s really great, you should read it at some point. Or just read all her amazing speeches.”

“I have indeed read them!” Max said. “They’re very inspiring, and surprisingly tolerant for the time period. Rania was very big on not forcing people to do things they didn’t want to, even if it disagreed with her opinions. As far as I remember she even told the soldiers that it would be dangerous to spare the village because they might get into trouble no matter what and so she didn’t blame them if they chose not to–”

Alix leaned over the side of the chariot and put a hand over Max’s mouth. “Max. My dude. If you would like to submit an application to become an official tour guide yourself, please wait until my tour is over.”

He nodded, though she could have sworn she heard him laughing a little. Oh, whatever. She took her hand off and continued.

“The head soldier suddenly got down on one knee and pledged allegiance to Rania, saying that she made a much better pharaoh than her brother. And she tried to warn him that it was a pretty treasonous thing to say and anyone here could snitch on him, but then other soldiers began doing the same. Eventually all of them did it. It must have been so rad to watch, to be honest, there’s this really cool movie about it which I have to show you sometime – and MAX YES I KNOW YOU’VE SEEN IT, don’t say anything.”

Max failed to hide a smile, turning away and covering the lower half of his face with his sleeve.

“Then the head soldier confessed that the number of people in the country who wanted to see Ramses overthrown outnumbered his supporters, though they kept it quiet. And now that it was clear that Rania didn’t support Ramses either and actually seemed to have a kind heart, this spark of hope would be a great time for revolution. And then she was like yeah that sounds sick let’s do it.”

“Actually she was cautiously reluctant at first–” Max began, before being whacked on the head again with Alix’s sceptre.

“So the soldiers spared the village, and went off undercover to gather supporters and make a plan to overthrow Ramses and also stop him destroying the dam while they’re at it. And Rania returned to the palace with her sister for the meantime, which brings us to our next stop on the tour…”

The next place she led them to was a small room with nothing but a bed and a table in it, barely enough for even one person to live in.

“When Rania got back to the palace, Ramses was so annoyed at her that he sent her into this very room right here to be locked here indefinitely with only servants allowed in. Which was better than exile or death, I guess.”

Well, maybe. She had a think about the other timelines – which ones were the best right now? Well the death timeline was certainly the worst. The one where she’d abdicated was basically exile, so was that better or worse than the one where she was still stuck in house arrest? They were about the same, really…

“Ramses had planned to move the workforce to the dam in a week,” she continued, “and he decided that he wanted to go along himself so that he could make sure the job got done properly. That gave the soldiers and their new resistance force only a week to prepare. Luckily the people of the country were just so _done_ with incompetent rulers by that time that they joined up immediately. And meanwhile Rania was stuck in here, not even allowed contact with her sister…”

Huh, that sounded relatable too…

“She managed to make friends with one of the servants at least. And then a week later, once Ramses had left the palace to go meet up with his workforce, the resistance team busted Rania out of here. Using this chariot here, she led the people of the resistance to the dam and did the standing-in-the-way thing again.”

“That’s a pretty _dam_ awesome thing to do,” Kim said, grinning.

“If you think people have not already made that dam pun a million times before, you are wrong.”

“Oh…”

“And also you’re royalty, you shouldn’t be swearing.”

“But damn isn’t a swear word! And you’re a…” He leaned towards Max again and whispered, “What’s that one word that sounds like hippo-something? You know what I mean…”

“Hypocrite?” Max suggested.

“Yeah, that’s the one! Alix, you’re a hypocrite!”

“No I’m not. I have never said a single swear word, once in my life, ever. Anyway, moving on – Rania’s forces met with Ramses’s workforce on the bridge leading to the dam. Ramses told her to move out of the way, she said she wouldn’t let him ruin the lives of millions of people like this, he said she had to listen to him since he’s the pharaoh, and then Rania pulled out her headdress and put it on like ‘actually I’M pharaoh now, bitch!’ And it was super hardcore and rad.”

Max mumbled something under his breath.

“What was that, Max? Care to share it with the rest of the tour group?”

Max spoke a little louder. “I just wanted to say that all contemporary accounts of the event are very adamant that Rania was always unfailingly polite, even while asserting her intention to take the throne for herself by putting on her headdress…”

“Fine, whatever. The point is, she made it clear that she now considered herself the pharaoh. Ramses was livid and ordered his workforce to attack, but almost all of them threw down their weapons and joined Rania’s side. So now Ramses was stuck on a bridge with like 3 supporters and a bunch of angry commoners wanting his blood… okay you’re right, this is totally like what’s inevitably gonna happen to Chloé’s dad.”

“Exactly.”

“Rania told her people not to attack Ramses… _yet._ Instead she ordered him to give her the pharaoh jewel, that thing I told you about earlier. He refused, saying it was totally ridiculous of the baby sibling of the family to get the throne. And he also wasn’t really that happy about giving up his throne to a girl, since suffrage wasn’t a thing yet and people were idiots back then…”

“What’s suffrage?” Kim asked.

“Women being allowed to vote.”

“Wait, women couldn’t vote?!”

She leaned forwards and patted him on the head. “Kim, you naïve child. I don’t understand how you’ve lived 17 whole years of your life without knowing this. But yes, Ramses was an idiot and instead of handing over the jewel, he grabbed the nearest person and pulled them into the chariot with him, holding a knife to their throat, threatening to kill them unless Rania stopped this rebellion immediately. Unfortunately, this person he was threatening was the servant who Rania had made friends with during her house arrest. Some servant kid called Imhotep.”

“Hey, isn’t that the full name of your snake?”

“Yep!” She gave the snake – who was curling up around the sceptre, as it often did – a little stroke. “So then Rania said fine, she didn’t care about the jewel, just let Imhotep go. And Ramses laughed, saying that no one internationally would take her seriously as pharaoh if she didn’t have the jewel so what was the point? And then he just killed poor Imhotep right there.”

Kim, who had been leaning against the doorframe and very subtly flexing his arm muscles at Max (though not subtle enough that it wasn’t obvious he was doing it), stumbled over. “Wait, what?! He KILLED him???”

“Yeah, I thought we’d established by now that Ramses was a pretty evil person.”

“But like… he killed some servant kid? Right in front of her…?”

“He did. And she just, very calmly, told her army of followers to go take the jewel off Ramses at any cost. And take his life, while they were at it.”

“Please tell me they killed that jerk,” Kim said.

“Nope. He threw the jewel and skedaddled. But now that Rania had the jewel and the support of her people, she was able to be officially crowned the new pharaoh. And she had hoped to do it without bloodshed, which she might even have managed if not for Imhotep’s death. Now for our next stop on the tour!”

The room she led them to next was up a long flight of stairs. The pain in her broken arm and lack of sleep was making climbing up all these steps a more difficult task than she wanted to admit. It didn’t help when she saw Kim picking up Max in his arms and running all the way to the top with no effort whatsoever. Freaking show-off.

Finally she made it to the top. The room was circular with a large stone table in the centre, a chandelier hanging above it. The snake took one look at it and hissed rather menacingly – maybe chandeliers brought back somewhat unpleasant memories.

“This was the room where Rania was crowned,” Alix explained. “It’s way less cool than the one I had for my coronation, but whatever, this was the 1700s. It was also the room where she had meetings with foreign diplomats, using her legendary charisma to persuade them that she was not a usurper and that she would do the best she could for her country, and most importantly, that she would keep her people happy. That was her main goal – something that this country still prides itself on following today.”

Happiness of the citizens – that was practically all that was ever talked about at council meetings. Making sure that people were happy, that they had the freedom to make their own decisions, that they weren’t in danger… Pharaoh Rania’s legacy still lived on even these centuries later, it seemed.

“Some cool things that she did were lower the absurdly high taxes, spend the government money on things that actually mattered, like food production and education, and immediately allied with Kanté and Lahiffe to support their united defences against an invasion from Agreste. It was called the International Alliance and yeah it’s the one you’re thinking of.”

“That is so cool!” Kim said. “I had no idea she was the one who founded the International Alliance. I thought it must have been Cleopatra.”

“The next time you mention Cleopatra I’m gonna get my snake to bite you so that you can experience the same death as she did. Anyway, Rania also was a great chariot-racer to the point that she founded the first sports club to teach people it, which is cool I guess, but not as cool as rollerskating. And also one time a 6 year old kid found an orphan corn snake and gave it to the great Pharaoh Rania as a present for basically fixing the country.”

“So you’re not the first pharaoh with a pet snake…”

“Nope, I’m just the first pharaoh with a _venomous_ one, that’s all.”

Right on cue, the snake snapped its vicious little jaws. Such an adorable little monster, really.

“Tell Kim about the crocodile pit,” Max said, grinning.

“Oh yeah, the crocodile pit! Rania had sent calls for ambassadors and diplomats from other countries so that she could start making more alliances, but half of them just sent a bunch of suitors. So she said that the next suitor to show up would be thrown in a pit of crocodiles. That didn’t deter people, and she did indeed throw people into a crocodile pit. But the crocodiles were tame ones that didn’t bite. All it did was give people a good scare. It was kind of like a running joke in the country. And to be honest I would absolutely do it too, except I don’t have any suitors unless you count Kim being in love with me about a year ago.”

Kim blushed. “Please don’t bring that up, it’s embarrassing…”

“Don’t worry, I promise you I wouldn’t throw you into a pit of crocodiles. Anyway, thanks to the International Alliance and all the reforms, the countries of this region were in a relatively stable place to be able to fight off the invading forces from Agreste. And just for good measure, Rania did the Cleopatra thing where she smuggled herself in a carpet to the heir to the throne of the Agreste Empire and charisma’d him into stopping the attack, at least on that part of the world.”

“Hey, you said we weren’t allowed to mention Cl… that person!”

“Please let me be a sleep-deprived hypocrite in peace, Kim.”

“…I’m only letting you off because you have a broken arm.”

“Good. Anyway, Rania also formed the elected council specifically so that no one person would be able to cruelly take power for themselves, and then a few decades later when the country was prospering enough, she abdicated and left the throne to her sister so she could go travel the world and make a difference elsewhere too. In her legacy we now have that rule where the throne passes to the youngest sibling when they turn 15, since that was the age she was when she became the coolest pharaoh ever.”

“Don’t you mean second coolest pharaoh ever?” Max asked.

“No, I mean the coolest, and I swear to god if you bring up fricking Queen Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic dynasty yet again–”

“I wasn’t talking about her, don’t worry. There’s a much cooler pharaoh I know.”

“Really? Who?”

Max didn’t miss a beat. “You, of course.”

“…Me?”

“Yes, you.”

Was he… serious? Surely not?

“You don’t look convinced,” Max said. “Let me make it clear: the coolest pharaoh that I know of is you, Alix, the person standing in front of me right now with her arm in a sling, pink hair, rather short, has a pet snake. _You_.”

“I agree,” Kim added.

Nah… they had to be joking.

“I know I’m amazing, but I mean from a ruler point of view,” Alix said. “Rania did so much stuff for her country, for the whole world in fact. She literally went racing off in chariots to stop people being killed! She was such a great leader that she had the support of everyone in her country and everyone in other countries too! And what have I done in comparison? Nothing relevant.”

Max cleared his throat. “Oh, you mean like the time you saved me from those poisoned chocolates?”

“Or the time you literally grabbed a sword blade with your bare hand to protect Adrien,” Kim said.

“Just the fact that you were willing to harbour a fugitive right in your dorm room for weeks on end despite how dangerous it was.”

“People like you so much that you legit have a mythical reputation at school. The flower cryptid.”

“You have one of the highest monarch approval ratings in the world.”

“You’re letting me stay here and helping me join the International Alliance, something which is gonna save my life!”

“And I know it doesn’t feel like it compares to things that Rania did,” Max said. “But things were different back then. Times have changed. Sure, the fact that you got a friendship sticker from each individual classmate of ours may not seem particularly epic or noteworthy. But in our modern society, on the brink of a global war, it is honestly _incredible_ that you have the love and respect of future leaders from countries all around the world. Plenty of potential peaceful allies right there. That will make a huge difference to the lives of millions of people, whether you think it will or not.”

“Yeah, what Max said!”

Alix just stared at her friends for several seconds, nothing really sinking in. Yes, she’d done all that, but it never really seemed like a big deal at the time…

Was this really how people saw her actions? _Pharaoh_ -worthy?

Hmm…

That was awesome, actually.

“You know what, you’re right,” she said. “I’m an awesome pharaoh. Even if I did break my arm really stupidly yesterday.”

“Not as stupid as the time I broke a finger by trying to high five someone really hard,” Kim admitted.

“Yeah, that sounds way less cool than hang-gliding. But thank you guys, you’re both great too, even if Max won’t shut up about nerdy stuff when I’m trying to talk and Kim keeps bringing up Cleopatra. Which reminds me, the tour is almost finished. I’ve just got one thing left to tell you.”

She paused for dramatic effect, looking up at them with a smirk.

“When Ramses was finally hunted down, thanks to Ahmi going undercover as a secret agent and some other cool stuff, he was brought here to this very room for a trial. But he mysteriously died on the spot. No one knows the cause. People say his ghost is still residing here, ready to haunt the living…”

Kim clenched his fists. “Where is he? I’m gonna fight him!”

Max burst into laughter. “Kim, you can’t fight a ghost! They’re incorporeal!”

“Did you just say ghosts aren’t real?”

“No, incorporeal…”

“Whatever. Hey Alix? Is the tour over now?”

She nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“’Cause that means I’m allowed to kiss Max now…”

Were those two dorks really going to kiss right here, in this haunted stuffy old room?

“Go for it!” she said, poking Kim in the arm with her sceptre, before running off out of the room before they actually did it. As cute as they were, that was _not_ something she needed to see. What the coolest pharaoh in the world really needed now was some more paracetamol. And most importantly, a nap!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know I once wrote a fic called "Jalil Goes Hang-Gliding"? It's terrible but the hang-gliding in this chapter reminded me of it XD


	53. A sudden proposal

The rest of the holidays passed far too quickly. Kim became very good at sneaking around, since he did not want people to know that he was secretly going back to the haunted room in order to catch that ghost and fight it. Unfortunately he didn’t find it, but never mind. There was always next time.

School started again exactly where it had left off. The teachers seemed convinced that the only way to teach the students was to give them more and more homework, and Aurore and Mireille were suddenly mad at each other for some reason, which completely messed up the weather. It was not uncommon to experience multiple thunderstorms in a day. Alix was fairly unhappy at first too, being unable to skate or do anything interesting at all with a broken arm, but by the end of the first week her cast was covered in leftover friendship stickers from many of the royalty and even a few of the nobles – a reminder that a broken arm was not the end of the world.

 

It was hard for Kim to get his mind off the interview he had done, the fact that the reporter had outright asked him if he had a sweetheart. He was at _that age_ now. And what then? How many more times would he be asked, and how much more would he have to hide it? What would happen if he _didn’t_ hide it? Did it even make sense for him to be worrying over this when there were much more immediate threats to worry about, like the possibility of being _assassinated_ if Alya ever let down her guard?

Not much time passed before Max noticed, and took Kim down to the thinking fountain late one evening. Aurore and Mireille’s feud, and the fact that they hadn’t been here to keep an eye on the weather during the holidays, meant that the flower petals had all been blown away by now. Well, at least the nobles didn’t treat this place like a tourist attraction anymore. It was back to being the peaceful sanctuary it always had been.

“So what’s wrong?” Max asked, sitting down on the ground at the foot of the fountain. Kim sat down next to him.

“I hate homework.”

“I know that’s not all that’s on your mind, but whatever’s troubling you, I hope being here will soothe your heart a little.”

That was the problem – his heart! His stupid, nonsensical heart!

“I’m not worrying about anything important,” he said quickly.

“Well it must be important to you if you’re worrying about it.”

Max’s voice was so restrained, so matter-of-fact, and he made no moves in the way of physical reassurance, but the way he kept glancing over to the side betrayed his true feelings. He was worried too. Worried about Kim.

“It’s not a big deal,” Kim insisted.

“Fair enough.”

Max wasn’t asking for details – he was simply trusting him. And that alone was enough to change Kim’s mind.

“Fine, I’ll tell you.”

Max turned to look at him, the concern in his eyes catching him off-guard. Something about being with Max at this fountain was always enough to send Kim’s heart speeding, no matter what. But now was not the time for that! He shook himself out of it and continued.

“I know this isn’t as important as like, avoiding global wars or assassinations or anything, but it’s just something I keep thinking about. And I know it’s not even relevant right now. It’s far off in the future. But um…”

He took a deep breath. How to put this?

“…I know we’re young, even for royalty, but sooner or later the people of my country are gonna be asking about like, betrothals and heirs and stuff. And I don’t know what to tell them!” He put his head in his hands, wishing he could hide away from the world for a while.

“Kim, that’s an understandable thing to be worried about.”

“And people in your kingdom won’t mind,” he continued, his voice muffled through his hands, “because they already know about stuff like that. But before I left home I didn’t even know it was possible for a guy to like guys or a girl to like girls! If there are other people like that back home then they clearly keep themselves hidden, and it must be for a reason!”

He felt Max’s hand on his shoulder. “There are definitely other people like you back in your kingdom. I promise you you’re not alone.”

Now he could feel raindrops on his head – Aurore and Mireille must be in a bad mood again, huh? But he didn’t care. There were too many awful scenarios running through his mind to be bothered about a bit of rain.

“What am I gonna tell everyone? If I hide it, they’re eventually gonna ask why I don’t have a wife yet, and if I tell them then they might be mad at me and depose me! Or they might even already know by that time, I mean, hopefully the telecommunications will be fixed before I go home but then they’d get the global news and everyone here at this school and in North Africa already know…”

“It’s a long time away, hopefully. By the time people either find out or start questioning you about it, attitudes might have changed. Or there’s always the option of… well, abdicating…”

Kim pushed his face further into his hands, blushing. Of course he’d thought about that. He had already imagined himself being king long enough to sort out the trouble with Agreste, then abdicating and leaving the throne to someone competent so that he could go marry Max…

Not that he was already thinking about marrying Max, of course! They were only 17. And yes, many royals did get engaged rather young, but that was usually an involuntary thing. No one married for love unless they were really _sure_ about it.

Oh… but marrying Max would be so nice…

“Will you marry me?” he blurted out.

Oh – _crap_ –

“Ignore that, ignore that!” He pulled his shirt up to cover his face, barely even daring to look in Max’s direction. “Just… n-no don’t answer that. That’s not what I was going to say.”

There was a long silence, only filled by the sound of the rain falling onto the ground with increasing intensity, and Kim did not want to break it.

“Then what were you going to say?” Max asked finally. His voice, so soft, was hardly audible over the rain.

Kim allowed himself to lift his face out of his shirt, though he still did not look at Max. “Um… I was gonna say I’m sorry for being so worried, I know it’s nothing important, especially compared to other stuff going on right now…”

“Of course it’s important! You don’t need to apologize, you can always talk to me about things like this if you need to.”

Ohhh, why was Max always so sweet? It was seriously no wonder Kim had accidentally proposed to him. And right now, it was the exact _opposite_ of what he wanted. He had to think, had to sort out his feelings, had to find a way to convince himself that the future was going to be okay despite all signs otherwise. Being around Max did indeed help him think, but it also distracted him a lot, made him think about things that this really was not the time for.

Like just holding Max tight and kissing him passionately in the rain…

No! Romance was not the answer to his problems! In fact, in some ways, it was the _cause_ of them. Or rather, stressing out over what other people would think of it.

“I have to go,” he said, standing up. “The rain… uh… ruins my hair…”

“Are you alright?” Max had now stood up too. He took Kim’s hands in his own – that wasn’t helping, oh no, it was making things worse.

“Um… yeah…”

“Are you sure? You still look worried.”

Well, he _was_ still worried. And if only he had some way to think it over properly, at least temporarily forgetting his fears so that he could go back to normal life! But that was impossible right now, with Max standing so close to him, gazing up at him, and it was so difficult not to just forget it and lean forwards and hug him close until all his worries melted away in the rain…

As much as it hurt, he stepped away. “I am still worried. And I just… I need to go clear my head. Sorry. We can hang out later.”

Max nodded. “Go for it.”

Ugh, he was so supportive and perfect it was almost _unfair_ how attractive it was. Kim lingered for a few seconds longer, debating whether or not to ignore every ounce of sense in his brain and just pull Max into his arms and make out with him until curfew.

For once in his life, common sense won. He turned and ran.

 

 

Okay, okay, now what…? Kim paced through corridor after corridor, his brain not feeling any clearer. What if he talked to Juleka or Rose? Surely they faced similar problems, after all, not many countries were as perfect as Max’s country, just like how not many people in general were as perfect as Max.

He stopped dead when he came across an unusual sight before him. Marinette was crouched on the ground in the middle of a deserted corridor, scratching the chin of a fluffy little… cat?

“Marinette?”

“Kim!” She looked over at him, grinning widely. “Come and say hello to my friend here!”

Kim slowly walked over, his worries seemingly having vanished at the oddly nostalgic but somewhat confusing sight of his childhood best friend playing around with a tiny black cat.

“Since when do you have a cat?” he asked. “I know everything about you, and I know you definitely don’t have one.”

She giggled. “You don’t know everything about me.”

“Yeah I do, or at least way more than everyone else.”

Growing up together had that effect. He knew that she named all her freckles, that she was a year younger than everyone else in their class, that she secretly made at least half her own dresses and just paid the tailor to pretend to have made them. But she certainly didn’t have a pet cat.

“Actually I’d say at this point Alya knows at least as much about me as you do,” Marinette said. “But anyway, this isn’t actually my cat.”

“You stole a cat?!”

“No! Of course I didn’t! He just seems to like visiting me a lot. This is actually that same cat that Adrien saved from a tree ages ago, you must have heard about that, right? Well now Adrien’s not here, so for some reason this cat seems to hang out with me instead…”

Hmm, strange. Kim did not dare to say anything out loud in case spies or guards were listening, but was it possible that the cat could somehow sense that Marinette was the last person here to have seen Adrien? Surely not…

“So who does the cat belong to?” he asked.

“One of the nobles, who doesn’t really care that much. Honestly, I might as well just keep the cat myself.”

“Does he have a name?”

“The noble or the cat?”

“The cat!”

“Oh – yes! His name is Plagg.”

Even stranger. What kind of cat name was “Plagg”, seriously?

“Would you like to stroke him?” Marinette asked.

“Yeah, sure…”

Kim bent down and ran his hand over Plagg’s back. It was so fluffy, so soft, so smooth, it seemed to almost bring everything into a new perspective. Nothing else was important in comparison to an adorable, fluffy cat.

“Apparently having a pet is good for you,” Marinette said, almost like she could read Kim’s mind. “It makes you happier.”

“Maybe I need a pet then…”

“What’s wrong?”

It didn’t seem nearly as terrifying now, being distracted by the immense amount of floof on this walking carpet. “I have no idea how my kingdom will react when they find out their prince and future king is bi. And also I accidentally sorta proposed to Max. And my hair got ruined by the rain. But it’s cool now, I guess, ‘cause this cat is really cute…”

“You proposed to Max?!”

Still focused on the cat, Kim simply said, “I meant to say it in my head but accidentally said it out loud.”

“And what did he say?”

“Nothing, because I told him to ignore it.”

“Oh Kim… that’s just the most _Kim_ thing ever…”

Of course it was. And things were still worrying him. But perhaps a little less, now – petting cats really did do wonders.

“If I ever ask him properly, I’ll be ready first,” he said. “And it’ll be a long time away. I have to sort out my kingdom first. And then if I abdicate in order to marry him, it won’t matter what anyone thinks because I won’t be the ruler anymore. I just have to survive until then.”

Marinette put a hand on his arm. “You will. I believe in you.”

“Thanks, Mari. You’re the best. You’re definitely invited to the wedding – if Max says yes, that is.”

“Of course he will!”

“I know…”

Kim wondered about what would have happened if he had stayed silent after his accidental proposal. Would Max have said yes? Would he have said no? Would he have suggested waiting until later?

Ah well, it didn’t matter. Hopefully Kim would get to ask again later, at some point in the far future. If he was still alive. And until then, if he ever needed reassurance, he could always go pet a cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 200k words??? ...I really need to get a life...


	54. Letter of doom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed last week's update because I was busy playing video games but I'M HERE NOW, I SWEAR

School continued much as it had before, this time with more homework and rather stormy weather. This was rather annoying for whenever Kim wanted to spend time with Max, since both the thinking fountain and the large balcony were outside in the rain, and nowhere else was romantic enough! They ended up mostly just doing homework together in the library, the same as everyone else in their class. There wasn’t much else to do anyway.

One of the more fun things was weekly duelling club – still not as much fun without Adrien, but at least Mylène and Sabrina were there now too. It wasn’t just Kim alone against the oddly judgmental nobility. Sure, he wasn’t close friends with either of them, but they were quite fun to hang out with.

Well… Mylène was. Sabrina, on the other hand, seemed to be closing up around everyone these days. What was wrong? Kim was not sure whether he should ask or not. Ever since she had beaten him in the first sword duel they’d had together… well, he wasn’t intimidated by her or anything, of course not! He just got the feeling that she found him annoying. Like a lot of people did, really.

After yet another somewhat quiet duelling session, Kim wandered back to his dorm alone. Mylène and Sabrina had stayed behind to chat to each other and somehow he didn’t exactly feel welcome in the conversation. Sabrina was clearly unhappy about something, Mylène was good with dealing with stuff like that, no point staying. It would just be awkward.

He arrived in his room to find a letter waiting for him. His heart leapt – could this be from his family? Was the postal route safe enough to have opened again? Could he go home again?

He tore the envelope open to see that – no, that was not from his family. This letter was typewritten. His family only ever sent him handwritten letters. His heart sank again. Was this some boring official letter then? What if it was a war proclamation or something? Did people declare war by sending letters?

As usual, he skimmed over it. Wait a second – this letter was from Queen Sol! The head of the International Alliance! Concentrating properly now, he read the letter from the start.

_I would personally like to extend to you a warm welcome to the Rolling Hills Palace for my daughter’s wedding in August! I believe this will be during your summer holidays from school, so please do feel free to stay as a palace guest for however long you need to. We would be overjoyed to have you here for this special occasion. Princess Penny would love to meet you, and so would her fiancé – I’m sure you must have heard his music before!_

_There are air and train links to neighbouring countries so you will easily be able to keep in contact with your close friends who you mentioned in your interview, and I will be sending invitations to them too. I very much hope you all can make it!_

_In the meantime, please take care. Your safety is important._

He was being invited to Princess Penny’s wedding? That was so cool! Of course he was going to accept that! And it wasn’t like he had planned anywhere else to stay in the summer holidays yet, he might as well go somewhere new.

Pulling a piece of paper out from the drawer, he sat down and tried to think up a reply. Usually he never sent letters – how exactly was he supposed to do it? Was it meant to be formal? Well, it was just Queen Sol, the nicest queen ever. She wouldn’t care. Her own daughter was marrying a _rock star_ apparently, so clearly formality didn’t matter much to her. But should he handwrite or typewrite his reply? Handwritten would probably be easier, since he was very unaccustomed to typing and didn’t even know where to find a typewriter here…

_Yeah sure I’ll go to your daughter’s wedding thing, sounds awesome!_

Okay, that was the worst letter ever written. He put it aside and got out another piece of paper.

_Thank you very much for your kind invitation. I would love to attend the wedding and I look forward to staying at the Rolling Hills Palace over the summer holidays. All the best to Princess Penny and Mr Stone._

There, that was much better. Sure, it was kinda short. But what else did he need to say? Writing letters was not exactly something that came naturally to him. After all, he always used to just straight-up ignore any letters his parents sent him…

He took another look at Queen Sol’s letter. The last paragraph was suddenly sounding kind of… _ominous_. Take care? Safety is important? True, but how did she know that? Hardly anyone knew about the poisoned chocolates! Perhaps she was just talking about the inevitable war that was brewing, or something, rather than threat of assassination. In any case, if she thought it necessary to give him a warning, then surely something must be up…

No point worrying about it right now. He was already being careful, and he had Alya to protect him. It was fine!

Looking at the clock, he noticed it was already late. The school postal office would be shutting in the next few minutes. Hmm… would he be able to make it there in time for today’s post deliveries? If he ran, maybe. But if he ran then he would get into trouble with any teachers he came across. Well, only if he got caught…

The old competitive spirit took over him. He grabbed his letter and ran off out of the room.

 

 

 

“Sabrina, you want to hang out?”

Sabrina turned around to see Mylène running after her. Of course – this always happened after duelling club. Mylène would want to chat, and Sabrina would make some excuse to go off and carry on her research alone. This was not anyone else’s problem to deal with. It was her own. She didn’t need to bring other people into it.

But it was so tiring, doing this all by herself…

“Alright,” she replied. Maybe a bit of companionship would be a nice change.

“Fantastic! So, what’s up?”

“Not much…”

“Really? You seem to have been doing a lot of solitary homework lately. Even more than the rest of us.”

Sabrina turned away. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just… something going on back home. I’m doing some research to try to figure out how to stop it.”

She felt Mylène’s hand on her shoulder.

“I know the feeling, Sabrina. Haprèle had landslides over the winter and I ended up stuck back at school, unable to do anything about it. Do you want to talk about it?”

Seriously? Surely Mylène was just being polite. There was no way she would want to be bored to death with tales of revolution and anarchy.

“It’s nothing to do with landslides,” Sabrina said quickly.

“Then what is it to do with?”

“Um… just commoner unhappiness. In general.”

Mylène nodded. “I guessed as much. This winter was a harsh one in this part of the world, wasn’t it? Not enough food, I hear.”

“Yes. Something like that.”

“Chloé was talking about that too, wasn’t she? The commoners in the Bourgeois Empire are unhappy, especially after the influenza pandemic. Is it something like that back in Raincomprix too?”

That was a bit of an understatement. Bourgeois was certainly not at the same level as Raincomprix yet. Heading there, yes, but not there yet.

“Things are getting a bit heated,” she replied.

“Ah, I see. Were you researching how to best keep it from escalating?”

Escalating? Things had already escalated! The kingdom was much too far gone to be saved at this point. At least, it felt like it anyway.

“I was researching how to solve a civil war,” she said, very quietly.

Mylène was silent for a few seconds, seemingly taken aback.

“Civil… war?”

“Yes. My country is in the midst of a civil war.”

It was the first time she had actually said it out loud. Chloé had already known about it from her father, and knew better than to speak to Sabrina about it. Other than a close hug and reassurance that everything was going to be okay, they hadn’t discussed it even once since then. And Sabrina hadn’t told anyone else.

She looked down, hoping the tears in her eyes would be unnoticeable.

“Aw, Sabrina…!”

Now she was wrapped into a close hug from Mylène, too. That certainly didn’t help stop the tears. She stepped back and quickly wiped them away, forcing herself to be stoic as always.

“I’ll fix it,” she said.

“You don’t have to fix it all by yourself! Does anyone else know about this?”

“Just Chloé. I didn’t want to bother anyone.”

“You’re not being a bother, don’t worry! You’re always allowed to ask for help if you need it, or just vent. I’ll help you out if you want.”

Sabrina managed to smile a little. “Thanks, but I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

“I know I can’t change anything back in your kingdom for you. But if you ever need to talk about it, I’ll always be here to listen. I promise.”

How was this happening? Timid little Mylène, encouraging someone like this, encouraging _Sabrina_ like this? She really had changed a lot recently. So had everyone, in fact. And maybe… just maybe, it was time for Sabrina to change too. Just a little.

“Alright, I’ll tell you about it,” she said, already regretting saying anything at all, but pushing onwards anyway. “Last summer the influenza pandemic hit Raincomprix hard. Then there were the harvest failures. It wasn’t my father’s fault! He tried his best to sort things out. He even tried to get help from the Bourgeois Empire. But no one was happy with that, since the Bourgeois Empire isn’t exactly a stable, happy place either. And then the commoners had an uprising. Now the country is split into two factions – one who are trying to get my family back in power, and one that… well…”

_Wants us dead._

Actually saying it all aloud was terrifying. And yet, somehow, it seemed to lift a weight somewhere. She couldn’t help but carry on.

“…has issued an order for our execution if we return to Raincomprix. This happened right when school started again so I’ve luckily been able to stay here and away from it all. To be honest, I knew it was coming. It had been brewing for years. The commoners are just so unhappy! But I don’t know how to fix it, and now the country’s a mess and seems totally unfixable, and I guess I’ll have to stay at Chloé’s until it all blows over – or maybe until one side wins or loses the war. Either we’ll be able to go home safe, or I’ll have to stop being a princess and I won’t get to see any of you again, or I’ll be – you know – um – executed. And until then, I’m just a fugitive, like Adrien and Kim!”

It did seem a lot now that she had actually told someone about it. Keeping it bottled up had made the problem nice and compact, small enough to be ignored with enough willpower. She really hadn’t wanted to bother anyone with it. But really… could she have kept something like this a secret for so long? Raincomprix was a quiet unknown backwater most of the time, a place that no one cared about. But news about something as big as a civil war would have got out eventually.

“Sorry about that,” she muttered, aware that her voice had become somewhat louder while she had been explaining her situation. “It’s not a big deal. I’m fine.”

Mylène just hugged her again. “We’ll get it sorted. I believe in you.”

_You… believe in me?_

No one had ever told her that before. She was just Sabrina, no one special. No one had any reason to say things to her.

But Mylène… was she saying it to be polite, or did she truly mean it?

Sabrina thought back to when the two of them had joined duelling club in the first place. Their positions had been almost reversed. Sabrina was sure of herself, confident when it came to this particular sport, knowing she could do it, and helping Mylène out with it too. And poor Mylène had been worried about the landslides back in her kingdom, unable to focus properly without knowing for sure that things were going to be okay. Mylène knew, at least somewhat, how it felt.

So maybe she did truly mean it?

Sabrina hugged her back. It actually felt kind of nice. She very rarely got hugs from people other than her father. Chloé did indeed hug her more often these days, but still tended to keep her distance – almost out of shame, if anything. Everyone knew how humble Chloé was being these days.

In any case, Sabrina was not used to hugs. But it certainly was something she could do with more of.

Letting go, she said, “Can we talk about something else now? Or do something else? I think I need to get my mind off it…”

“Of course!” Mylène smiled at her, so full of warmth it couldn’t possibly be fake. “I’ve got chess up in my room – would you like to play?”

Chess sounded good. It was one thing Sabrina was very good at indeed. Hopefully it would make her feel better about everything.

“Yes please.”

“Fantastic – let’s go!”

 

 

Kim walked back to his room after having delivered his letter at the school postal office, having made it just in time and avoiding any teachers along the way. Queen Sol’s words were still echoing around his brain rather hauntingly. _In the meantime, please take care. Your safety is important._

Well yeah, it was important to _him_. But why did she say it like… that? As if it was important for other reasons too? And anyway, what did she know? Did she have spies or something? Ugh, politics was so confusing sometimes!

At least Alya still had his back. As long as she was at school with him, he could count on her to keep him safe. And if he spent all his holidays in far-off countries, powerful ones that were part of the International Alliance, there was no way he could be assassinated. It was fine. He was going to be okay. Everything was going to work out in the end.

He entered his room and sat down at the desk, aware he still had plenty of homework to do. But first to get rid of that awful excuse for a practice letter that he had written earlier. There was no way he was letting anyone see that – thank goodness he had managed to write a better one!

Picking up the piece of paper left on the desk, he was about to throw it away when the writing on it caught his eye.

_Thank you very much for your kind invitation. I would love to attend the wedding and I look forward to staying at the Rolling Hills Palace over the summer holidays…_

Wait a second.

This was…

This was the proper letter! The formal one! The actual good one!

So then what had he sent…?

Oh no – no no no no no no no. He couldn’t have sent that stupid draft, could he? What had he said in it? _Yeah sure I’ll go to your daughter’s wedding thing, sounds awesome!_ Yikes, that was so lame! And so informal! How could he have sent a letter like that to the queen of an actual country?! He was supposed to be a good prince, one who would be allowed to join the International Alliance – and now he’d just gone and done something stupid as always!!

Would the postal office still be open? No, it was too late for that now, the letter would already be on its way. There was no stopping it.

Kim just rested his head face down on the table, trying very hard to resist the urge to swear. Royalty were not supposed to swear. It was a thing that had been drilled into every single member of royalty across the globe from a young age. But Alix had been ignoring that recently, hadn’t she? So why couldn’t Kim too? This was a great time for swearing!

“Drat,” he mumbled quietly into the desk.

Oh come on… he couldn’t even swear properly. What kind of a prince even was he?

Never mind. Time to write an apology letter to Queen Sol now, and try to fix this total trainwreck before he looked like a complete idiot.


	55. Not smart enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't really been keeping to a weekly schedule, but I'll always try and get a new chapter up within 2 weeks at most.
> 
> Also, it just occurred to me that this crazy fic is definitely over 2/3 of the way complete. As in, there really isn't that much more left to write. It probably won't even take too long now to get to the end O_O Anyone who's still keeping up with this thing, I have no idea how you're doing that but thank you <3

Max sat alone in his room at his desk, hunched over his homework. He had been trying to solve this question for almost an hour now, and yet his answer never matched the one in the textbook! Why? What was he doing wrong? Usually he was supposed to be good at schoolwork!

Erasing yet another wrong answer, he wondered if he should just give up and go ask someone for help with it. But no, he couldn’t do that – he was _Prince Max_. He had a reputation to keep up. The smart one, the one who everyone else asked for homework help, the one who was clever enough to solve any problem. That was, fundamentally, who he was as a person. For as long as he could remember, that was what he was always referred to as. The smart one. Being smart was pretty much his entire personality.

Then why was he finding his schoolwork so tough these days?

He just put his pencil down and put his head in his hands, his brain too frazzled to concentrate for any longer. This couldn’t be happening. Schoolwork had always been easy for him, right from when he was a little kid and his tutor had proudly informed his parents about how talented and amazing he was. All through his life that had just been reinforced, with constant high test results, and learning new information easily compared to other kids his age. And here at school, he had just _shone_.

But it wasn’t happening now. Over the past few months things had been getting tougher and tougher. Why? How could someone just stop being smart like that? It simply wasn’t logical!

There was a loud knock on his door. Judging by the volume, that must either be Kim or Alix. Looking at the clock, he could also judge that it was highly likely to be Alix – Kim was too busy preparing for the summer gala later that day, wanting to “impress Max” apparently, whereas of course Alix cared very little about the summer gala. Max pushed his homework aside and said, “Come in.”

Sure enough, it was Alix who entered, looking oddly cheerful compared to how inadequate he was feeling right now. She ran right over to him and waved her arm in front of his face.

“Maxy-Max! Look! My arm’s healed now and they took the cast off!”

He forced himself to look happy about it. “That’s excellent news.”

“Exactly. I can go rollerskating again, finally! In fact, I’m just gonna skip the stupid summer gala thing and go do that instead, it’ll be way more fun. And I won’t get into trouble for dropping any more chandeliers…”

Max was almost disappointed to hear that. The chandelier thing had been very, very entertaining, enough to actually make the spring dance _fun_ somehow. But at least the summer gala was informal, so it wouldn’t be anywhere near as dreary. He couldn’t fully remember what it had been like last year, other than knowing he had spent most of it drinking away his woes with orange juice. This year was bound to be much better.

“So what’s up with you?” she asked, a little less hyper now. “You’re going to the summer gala, right? I just went to see Kim and he yelled at me for interrupting him when he was trying to do his hair, so you’d better go and appreciate his efforts.”

“Of course I will!”

“Are you gonna get ready too? You can’t go in those pyjamas. Well, I guess you could actually. I went to the thing in January in pyjamas.”

“I’m not going to wear my pyjamas! I was just…” He sighed. Part of him didn’t want to say anything, but it would be good to confide in someone. “I was working on a homework problem that I was finding quite tough.”

She looked surprised for a few seconds. “Really? Which one?”

“This one.” He pulled the sheet out and handed it to her.

“Ohhh, friggin’ calculus. I hate this stuff. Why are they even teaching it to us? I have no idea how this is gonna help us rule a country.”

“They are teaching us similar curriculums that our commoner peers would be learning right now,” Max said, “so that we have a roughly equal level of general knowledge. The royalty lessons we have on top of that are what makes this school any different from a normal one.”

“Huh, okay.”

“Anyway, I can’t do it. I’ve already been trying for an hour and haven’t got anywhere. It feels very… unusual.” He clenched his fists. “It may sound selfish, but I really can’t understand why I’m not finding this easy. It’s like I’ve been losing brain cells over the past few months.”

Alix sat up on the desk. “You kinda remind me of Jalil, you know.”

“Really? Why?”

“He used to find school really easy all the time and never bothered putting in any effort, ‘cause he didn’t need to. And then when he was about this age, his natural talent burned out and he actually had to start working hard to keep up.”

“Are you saying I don’t work hard?”

“I dunno, do you?”

Max was about to give a rather indignant reply, before he stopped himself and actually had a think about it. Did he work hard at school? He certainly got all his work done on time, and he easily understood new topics taught to him. But that… that wasn’t hard work, was it? That was just him being good at it without trying! He barely needed to use his brains to get the best marks in class. It all came to him naturally.

The other kids didn’t have that, or not quite to the same extent. Kim usually spent a lot longer working on his homework, getting Max to tutor him, trying to understand new concepts. He certainly worked very hard at it indeed. A lot harder than Max ever needed to. It wasn’t unusual for Kim to spend hours and hours stuck on a single question before admitting defeat and getting help with it.

Which was _exactly_ what Max was going through right now.

He barely even revised for exams. He never asked for help. He never got questions wrong. He wasn’t used to having to work to get things right. It should always be easy!

“I never need to work hard,” he admitted. “I’m smart. Well – I thought I was…”

Was he not smart anymore? If his natural talent had finally come to an end, and he was at the same level as everyone else now – if he wasn’t the smart kid, then _who was he?_

“I’m not smart anymore,” he said, almost in a whisper. The concept was just so… so horrifying! It made him feel all cold and hollow inside, made his brain feel static, like he was dropping IQ points by the second.

“Of course you’re not smart, you’re dumb as hell,” Alix said. “You always have been.”

“But I used to be good at schoolwork!”

“Pfffffff, you’re logical and like thinking about stuff and you have a good memory. You’re not, like, _proper_ smart. You don’t even know how to cook an omelette or load a washing machine.”

“Well neither do you!”

“Hey, I didn’t say I was smart either. We’re both dorks. You’re just a dork who’s good at school stuff.”

Max looked down at his textbook, disappointment weighing on him. “At least, I used to be… What do I do now?”

“Just start working hard, I guess. That’s what Jalil did. I mean, you’ve still got an edge. You grasp new concepts easily and tend to enjoy learning about new things, even going out of your way to do it, so it’s not all doom and gloom.”

“You sound a bit like a teacher…”

She rolled her eyes. “Listen, Jalil used to vent at me about this stuff for months on end, so I’m an expert at this. Trust me when I say you’re gonna be okay.”

The weight on his mind lifted ever so slightly. He did indeed trust her, and if she said it was going to be okay, then hopefully she was right. Logically speaking, if she knew a lot more about all this than he did, then it made sense to listen to her.

“Thank you,” he said, pushing a smile onto his face. “I suppose I’ll have to start working harder from now on. Especially if I want to carry on tutoring Kim…”

Wait a second – Kim! How many times had he gushed to Max about how _smart_ Max was, and how much he admired it and loved him for it? How crushed was he going to be to realize his sweetheart wasn’t anywhere near as smart as he thought he was?

He thrust his face in his hands. “Kim loves me for being smart – what am I going to tell him?”

To his surprise, Alix just laughed. “See what I mean? You’re dumb as hell! If you really think Kim only likes you ‘cause you’re a nerd, then honestly you’ve gotta have a little more faith in yourself…”

“I’m just being realistic! He has a very strong admiration for my intellect. It’s something he mentions very often. He really seems to care about it a lot.”

“Let’s see about that, shall we?”

She flicked open the lid of her sceptre and started tapping something into it.

“Wait – are you calling him?” Max asked. “You don’t need to–”

“Too late, it’s already ringing!” She pressed the speaker button and set the sceptre on the table in between them both. Kim picked up almost immediately.

“Alix, what is your problem?! I told not to interrupt me when–”

“Your boyfriend is having a bad day and needs some support,” she said, “so I’m pretty sure your hair can wait.”

Kim’s tone changed immediately. “Oh, you should have said so before! What’s wrong?”

“Just normal existential crisis stuff, whatever. Max is right next to me – tell him why you love him.”

Kim didn’t even need to think for a second. “Oh Max, you sweetie! You’re the awesomest person ever, that’s why! You’re always so nice, and really cute, and so much fun to hang out with and talk to and – hm what else – oh yeah! It’s so cool that you’re so different from me! All rational and logical and calm, it’s really inspiring. And you’re really cute. Did I mention that already? And I love spending time with you so much, and…”

He carried on for a few more minutes at least. The whole time Max half wanted to sink right into his chair and melt away, half wanted to jump through the phone and hug him. All this kindness, all these compliments! Being the sweetheart of a person like Kim meant that he got this a lot, but it wasn’t something he could ever really get used to. It felt so special every single time.

And Kim hadn’t even mentioned Max being smart at all.

Logical, rational, yes, and even saying “you make me feel smart because you’re always teaching me stuff!” But he never outright said it.

Something stirred in his memory – the day of the Cupid Festival, when Max and Kim had got together in the first place. They had said a lot of things to each other that day, things that they hadn’t said before. And something that Kim had said suddenly stood out to him.

_Please don’t think I only like you ‘cause you’re smart. I like you for a whole lot more than that._

It wasn’t something that Max had paid much attention to at the time, being too overwhelmed at Kim actually liking him back to really take anything in. But there it was. Right from the beginning, Kim had already told him what he needed to hear.

Oh, thank goodness.

“Thank you Kim, I feel a lot better now,” he said finally, really meaning it.

“Aw, I’m glad! Well do you need anything else?”

“I’ll be alright. I was simply being a bit… irrational.”

He couldn’t help but smile. Something about Kim always made him feel irrational. Usually it was a good thing. Occasionally it wasn’t, like just now – how could he honestly have considered that Kim would be disappointed if Max struggled a bit with a homework question?! – but that could always be sorted out.

“Seems like my irrational-ness has been rubbing off on you, huh?” Kim said, the flirtiness practically audible through the phone. Max grinned even more.

“The word is ‘irrationality’. But yes, I suppose it has.”

“Max, I love you a lot, you know?”

“I do know. And I love you a lot too.”

“I can’t wait to see you later!”

“Me too, I’m looking forward to it…”

“That’s enough,” Alix said, snatching the sceptre away, though she was grinning too. “If you guys are gonna be mushy then use your own phone, thanks. I’m gonna hang up now and you can carry on doing your hair for another 2 hours or whatever. Or does one of those hours involve admiring your own reflection?”

“Of course not!” Kim snapped. “I wouldn’t spend an _entire hour_ – 10 minutes maybe, but not–”

“Whatever.” She hung up and shut the lid of the sceptre, then turned to look at Max. “You good now?”

Max nodded. “Yes. Thank you for that.”

“No problem. If I’m being honest, you and Kim are, uh… actually kind of adorable. I hope you guys have fun at the summer gala. Doing your _scientific research_ or whatever.”

Max was aware of his face warming up – he knew perfectly well what she meant by _scientific research_. Usually, though, he was a little too lovestruck to think about actual science on the odd occasion Kim kissed him for more than a minute at a time.

“The summer gala is, uh, probably not the most ideal place for that,” he said quickly. “But I’m sure it’ll be fun. And I hope you enjoy rollerskating. Make sure to take care, as even with your arm out of its cast it might not be fully up to its usual capacity and–”

She poked him in the arm with the sceptre. “Whatever, nerd, do your homework.”

“You should do yours too!”

“We’ve only got a few more days of school until the holidays, who cares? Not me. But you have to work hard, okay? Don’t be a hypocrite like me.”

He grinned, taking the homework sheet and putting it back in front of him. His brain felt much readier to take on the task now. “I know perfectly well that you work very hard too, as much as you pretend not to. But I will certainly try not to be a hypocrite.”

“Good. See you later – and have fun!”

Taking her sceptre with her, she left the room. Max picked up his pencil again and looked back down at the sheet. There were no shortcuts to this, were there? He really would just have to work at it. Just like Kim did. Yes, that was a good source of inspiration – to be a hard worker, just like Kim!

Feeling much more motivated now, he put his head down and got on with it.

 

 

 

Max arrived at the hall of the summer gala to see Kim waiting for him already. For once he was wearing a more European style of formal clothing, and he looked just as stunning in it – and of course, his hair was done immaculately.

“Kim, you look wonderful!” Max said, running over to him and taking his hand.

“So do you!” Kim replied, leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in red before.”

Max smiled, looking down at the red robes he had decided on for today. “It’s your favourite colour, so…”

“Well it looks super awesome! Almost as good as me, I’d say…” Kim winked at him, sending flutters through his heart. “Anyway, my amazing wonderful sweetheart, are you feeling better now?”

“I am, don’t worry. It was just something a little silly. I was having trouble with the homework, and I’m so used to finding it easy that I wasn’t exactly feeling pleased with myself. But I managed it in the end, in part thanks to your encouragement.”

Kim gave his hand a squeeze. “Good work – I’m happy for you!”

“Thank you. I know now that I have to work harder from now on, just like you do. In fact, I’d like a bit of advice. These holidays I really want to intellectually challenge myself. What do you suggest I do?”

“Oh, um, what do you mean? Like, should I tell you to build a robot or something?”

A robot! That would be perfect!

“That’s exactly what I meant,” Max said, hardly able to hide the huge grin on his face that always appeared when thinking about robotics. “This summer I’ll build a robot. In fact, when I was younger I did indeed make a very simple automaton, so I could probably upgrade that one.”

“Is that the one you said you kissed once?”

Oops, he had forgotten he’d told Kim about that! It was so embarrassing to think about that he tended to keep it to himself. “Maybe…”

“That’s adorable.”

“Says the guy who has a habit of kissing pillows.”

Kim blushed bright red. “I haven’t done that in a whole, like… two weeks! I’m over it. I mean, I’ve got you now, so I don’t really need the pillows…”

“And I don’t really need the robot for that either now. But I’ll certainly have fun programming it. I kind of wish I had a computer of my own sometimes…”

“What’s a computer? Isn’t it one of those massive machine things that can do maths on its own?”

“It’s more complex than that, but essentially, yes. And when I make my robot, I will be making use of similar concepts.”

“That’s so cool,” Kim said, staring at Max with such an adoring expression that he was very tempted to engage in some scientific research right on the spot. Instead he changed the subject, deciding to save that for later when they weren’t in a hall full of people.

“So you’ll be staying at Queen Sol’s palace for the holidays, right?”

Kim nodded. “I’m gonna get to meet Princess Penny and Jagged Stone and everything. It’s gonna be awesome! You’ll be there for the wedding, won’t you?”

“Yes, I certainly will. I might bring my automaton friend along if I’ve programmed it enough by that point.”

“Nice!”

“Anyway, I should probably warn you that Jagged Stone has a pet crocodile and you will most certainly be introduced to it at some point.”

“A crocodile?” Kim’s face went white. “As a pet?”

“Nowhere near as dangerous as Alix’s pet cobra.”

“Yeah but… I mean, I’m not s-scared of crocodiles or anything, but…”

Max grinned, knowing perfectly well he was lying. “I’m sure you’ll be well acquainted with Fang by the end of the holidays.”

“Its name is FANG???”

Oh, poor terrified Kim. Max started laughing, unable to help himself. Kim had been afraid of the snake at first too, and he was perfectly fine with it now, so the crocodile was sure to end up the same way!

Hmm, the wedding was in August… would there be enough time to make a somewhat autonomous robot before then? Maybe, with a lot of hard work, it would be possible.

He made up his mind. He was going to do it.

 

 

Just outside the main hall, the setting sun barely still visible, Marinette sat stroking Plagg again. This cat just kept coming back to her, over and over again! And even weirder, it tended to always find her whenever she was thinking about Adrien in particular. It couldn’t be a coincidence. This cat was special.

“Kitty! I can’t believe you ran away again!” The cat’s owner was back, running over towards them now. “Stop annoying Princess Marinette, she’s probably got better things to be doing…”

“It’s okay, I don’t mind!” Marinette said quickly. “Really, I don’t. I promise. I love Plagg, he’s practically a friend of mine now.”

Plagg let out a little meow of affirmation.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the noble said. “Plagg really likes you. I still think you should keep him.”

That was what the noble had been saying every single time, and Marinette had constantly refused, not wanting to take a pet away from someone. But her resolve was crumbling. This poor cat… it really didn’t like its owner much. It seemed to want Marinette instead.

Or rather, it seemed to want Adrien…

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Like, really, _really_ sure?”

“I am. I’ve had enough of this cat. I can’t stand to look at this thing for yet another long summer holiday! Just look how he looks at me!”

Sure enough, Plagg was glaring at the noble, hissing slightly, before curling back up into Marinette’s arms.

Well, she couldn’t just leave an unhappy cat with its unhappy owner, could she?

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll take Plagg home with me.”

_I’ll take him to Adrien,_ she added silently.

“Really? Oh, thank you Your Highness! Thank you so much!” The noble crouched down and looked right in Plagg’s face. “Now you be good to Princess Marinette, okay? She’s a _princess_. No scratching, or biting, or clawing, or–”

Plagg took a swipe at him.

“Ugh, you little dipshit – I’m not gonna miss you at all!” He quickly covered his mouth with his hands. “Oh shoot, I’m not meant to swear around royalty, I’m so sorry–”

“It’s fine,” Marinette said, giggling a little. “Perhaps you should just get out of here before Plagg scratches you to pieces.”

“Good idea. Goodbye, Your Highness, and good luck with him!” The noble took to his heels and ran off.

Marinette picked Plagg up in her arms. He was so small and light, like a little ball of fluff. It was adorable. In fact, bringing a cat back home for Adrien to hang out with would be ideal for him. Pets were good for you, after all! Oh, she just couldn’t wait to see Adrien again. Only a few days left now.

Hang on a second… what even was the noble’s name? It occurred to her that she had never asked. Huh. Maybe Adrien would know?


	56. The ultimate news story of the year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's past midnight here in the UK therefore it's the weekend already so I can totally post this)
> 
> Uh, warning: very very mild season 2 spoilers from this point onwards I guess? Nothing plot relevant or anything, just the occasional new character, nothing particularly important really. Just wanted to make sure you know! Now back to the angst <3

The summer holidays began a few days later. Sabrina, unable to return to her own war-torn country out of safety concerns, stayed with Chloé instead. Marinette took her new pet cat with her on the long journey to Cheng, eagerly waiting to reunite with Adrien again. Kim, Max and Alix all went by ocean liner to the northern port before heading off in separate directions.

Travelling alone felt unusual for Kim now. Of course, being a prince, there were plenty of attendants leading the way and showing him where to go, porters carrying his luggage, everything he needed. But taking an aeroplane on his own felt oddly lonely. He was used to travelling with his friends these days.

Once he landed at the airport in Nubia he was taken by limousine to the Rolling Hills Palace, as it was known, being on top of a hill by the side of the Nile. It was just as grand and spectacular as the palaces belonging to Max and Alix – was everywhere in this part of the world so extravagant? The walls were painted white to keep the inside cool, as usual, which Kim was thankful for. Having been at school up north for so long, he had practically forgotten what true heat felt like.

Queen Sol was waiting to greet him at the entrance. “Prince Kim! It’s so good to see you again! Come in, come in, you must be tired from your long journey.”

“Um, I’m alright,” he said, before wanting to smack himself in the head. He was talking to a queen here! He should say something formal and polite!

Queen Sol, however, did not seem to care. She simply smiled at him and said, “I should have known. Someone used to athletic activity wouldn’t be tired out by a simple plane and car ride, would they?” She laughed all of a sudden. “By the way, your reply to my letter was hilarious! Much more amusing than any other reply I received! You needn’t have sent the apology, though that was kind of you.”

Kim blushed, not daring to say anything. She really hadn’t minded his stupid letter?

“Anyway, please do follow me, I’ll take you to your quarters directly.”

She led him inside the palace. He followed her down several pretty-looking corridors before arriving in his allocated room. The porters carried his luggage in, then were instructed to leave for a moment.

“I know you have only just arrived and would probably want a tour of the place above all else,” Sol said, sounding more serious all of a sudden, “but there is something I must first discuss with you that cannot wait. Your application to join the International Alliance.”

Oh yes, that thing. Kim gulped. He had kind of forgotten about it, too busy fretting about the crocodile he was going to have to meet at some point.

“You’ve already filled out all the paperwork during your last holidays, which is excellent,” she continued. “It has been sent here and is being processed as we speak. Once that’s all sorted, the decision will be put to a vote amongst all the leaders or ambassadors of each country in the International Alliance.”

A vote? Oh boy…

Sol seemed to sense his unease, putting a hand on his shoulder and looking down at him with a smile. “It’ll be alright. The results will be in on 1st September, which I know is when you will start your final school year, so I’ll make sure to let you know by telephone or letter what the outcome is. I’m sure it’ll be positive.”

“Thanks,” he said, aware that he hadn’t said much at all so far. Thinking about serious things like this was making him nervous, though.

“Your TV interview in the spring did wonders for your international popularity levels. As long as you continue to impress other leaders like this, I see no reason why you shouldn’t get an overwhelming majority in the vote. Lê Chiến will be part of the International Alliance before you know it!”

As long as he continued to impress other leaders? Well, considering his reputation of being annoying and reckless, there was no way _that_ was going to last. Being charismatic on TV was one thing. Being charismatic in person was entirely another! This already wasn’t boding well…

“Have faith in yourself,” Queen Sol was saying now, almost like she could read his thoughts. “Your friends will support you. I’ll support you too. You’re very young, so even if you do make mistakes, no one will think worse of you for it. However, that being said…”

She paused for a moment, seemingly trying to figure out how to phrase whatever she was about to say next.

“Though you may be young, I don’t believe it’s right to hide from you the seriousness of your situation. You deserve to know the truth. And the truth is that your life may be in danger.”

Kim knew that already. And he really, really did not feel like being reminded of it.

“It is through no fault of your own. The simple fact is that you are heir to the throne of your country, and Emperor Gabriel is looking for any excuse to start a war and take over. You need to be careful. I’m not saying it’s certain that he could send assassins, but it is seeming likely at this point. Part of the reason I invited you here for the holidays is so that I can protect you from that, if he were cruel enough to do such a thing.”

She didn’t know. She didn’t know about the poisoned chocolates. True, hardly anyone knew about that, but still. The way she was talking, as if sending assassins was a nightmare come true, something to be protected against at all costs…

Kim was surprised to feel his eyes burning. But no – he couldn’t cry here, in front of a queen, in front of the leader of the entire International Alliance! He had to act like a grown-up prince now, not some little kid who cried at the thought of death! He looked down at the floor and willed himself to grow a backbone already.

“Are you alright?” Queen Sol asked, her grip on his shoulder tightening. “I’m sorry I brought up such a serious topic the moment you arrived. I thought it would be best to get it out of the way as soon as possible so that you could enjoy the rest of your holiday here without interruption.”

“I’m fine,” Kim tried to say, but his voice cracked a little.

“Are you worried about assassination attempts? It’s an understandable fear, don’t worry, you have every right to be afraid. You will be safe here though, I assure you. No one should ever have to go through having someone else out to kill them.”

But he _had_ gone through that! It really had happened. Emperor Gabriel was actually, seriously, trying to kill him. A total stranger truly wanted him dead. And the proof was in the chocolate.

Queen Sol was silent for a few seconds, before bending down a little and looking right at his face in concern. “You… you already know all this, don’t you?”

He just nodded, knowing that if he spoke then he would start crying for real.

“You already know. Is it because… you’ve already been through this? Has there been an attempt on your life?”

He nodded again. He really wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about that, but right now he didn’t care. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was _scared_. Being here in this unfamiliar kingdom, his friends far away, it made all his problems seem a thousand times bigger.

Death… war… it wasn’t even just a personal issue. If he died, the Agreste Empire would attack his kingdom. His life was the one thing keeping millions of people safe. There was so much more at stake here than just the life of some idiot 17-year-old.

“So someone has already tried to assassinate you and you survived it…”

Kim wiped a tear off his face. Sol’s voice had gone softer now, and it was reminding him oddly of his grandmother, of all people. He hadn’t seen his grandmother in so long now… and he might never get to again…

“Oh, you poor boy, come here…”

The next thing he knew, he had been wrapped in a hug. Something about it was… _different_. It wasn’t like he didn’t get hugs these days, after all, he had his close friends at school. But Queen Sol was one of the few people he knew who were taller than him, and there was the fact that this wasn’t a friendship hug – it was a _protective_ hug.

The kind of hug his grandmother used to give him…

The tears were rolling before he could stop them. He didn’t feel like a prince, the important heir to the throne of a country – he just felt like a scared little kid! He didn’t want to die. It was too soon. He was too young, it couldn’t end like this. But there was a very real chance that it would, and Queen Sol knew it.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she said, her voice soothing, yet firm. “I swear it. You don’t deserve to be put into this cruel, cruel situation. Every single member of the International Alliance will do our best to keep you safe. Please know that there are far more people on your side than against you. And if you ever need anything, anything at all, you can ask me. I will provide it.”

She was just so nice. The queen of a rich, powerful country, in charge of some of the most influential nations in the world, who could do anything she wanted. And here she was personally taking care of some fugitive kid from a distant country who she hardly even knew.

Somehow, her kind words were enough to calm him down a little. At least enough to stop crying. He still didn’t trust himself to speak, instead just letting himself be hugged by the nicest queen in the world and reminding himself that if he survived one assassination attempt, then surely he could survive more. Maybe. It was at least a thought to hold onto.

After what felt like a few minutes, Sol stepped back and put both hands on his shoulders, frowning at him. “You are very brave, Kim. You’ve done very well to get this far. Now, you don’t need to give me details, but please tell me – do you have any way of protecting yourself from assassins while at school? If not, something can be arranged.”

“I’ve already got someone,” he said quietly. Princess Alya had been doing an excellent job so far. He trusted her a lot.

“I’m glad to hear that. You really are doing a very good job, alright? None of the things happening to you are your fault. You’re going to go far, I can just tell.”

His mood was lifting ever so slightly. Sol just knew exactly what to say to make him feel better, didn’t she?

“Anyway,” she said, smiling again now, “I think that’s enough of all this. While you’re here I want you to forget all about anything stressful, and just have a good time. I’ll be arranging some fun activities for your stay. You’ll also get to meet Penny and Jagged once they return from their tour in Atlantica soon, and you’ll be able to meet up with your friends at the wedding. I hope these few months will be fun for you!”

Kim allowed himself to smile a little too. “Thanks.”

“You are very welcome. I’ll leave you alone now so you can make yourself at home – do let the porters know if you need a hand unpacking. I’ll send someone to fetch you for dinner, after which you can have a tour of the palace. Is that alright?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She chuckled a little. “You really are an interesting person, you know? So polite right now, like you were at the conference meeting back in the winter. So very different to how you were during your lacrosse match.”

The lacrosse match! Kim had completely forgotten that Queen Sol had been there watching that trainwreck. How embarrassing.

“For the record, I’m not usually as gloomy and serious as I was just now,” she said. “Feel free to treat me as a ‘cool aunty’ or something. That’s what your friend Alix does.”

Yeah, well Alix was crazy and everyone knew it. Still, it would probably be nice to see the more humorous side of Sol. If she could watch that ill-fated lacrosse match without thinking worse of Kim for it, then she had to be a cool person.

“I guess I’ll do that too then,” Kim said. “Thanks, Your Majesty.”

“If you really want to call me that then I won’t stop you, but it does sound a bit overly formal. Feel free to call me Sol, or Aunt Sol, or whatever you want, really. Within reason, of course. Oh, and just one more thing before I go!” She grinned suddenly, looking far less royal. “Is it true you love challenges and dares?”

Oh shoot, even she knew about that? “Um… yeah…”

“Then I certainly have some great ideas about fun challenges to plan for you this summer. You’re going to have a great time. I must be off and get that sorted right away!”

With that, she turned and left. Kim couldn’t help but believe her – if Queen Sol said things were going to be okay, and that he would have fun this summer, then she must be right.

He hadn’t seen his family in so long, almost two whole years now… but Sol kind of reminded him of them. Maybe with her around, he wouldn’t feel quite so homesick.

 

 

 

Somewhere further to the west, Max was just arriving back home at his own palace. He hadn’t been here since the winter holidays, considering he spent the spring over with Alix. But oddly enough, he didn’t really miss the place that much. And though he had missed his family as always, he wasn’t thinking about that right now. He had something else on his mind. A certain little metal friend that he needed to find.

The press had other ideas, of course. As soon as he arrived there were plenty of reporters loitering around the entrance, eagerly jumping up with their cameras, microphones and notepads when they saw the limo pulling up. Well, it wasn’t like Max hadn’t been expecting it. He never usually stayed away from home for so long, and everyone would want to know about it.

“I will answer a few questions, but then I need to go rest,” he said to them all from beside his numerous bodyguards, on the inner side of the protective fence. It was a lie – he certainly wasn’t going to go _rest_ when he had something much more interesting to be doing. But there was no way anyone would leave him alone otherwise.

“Your Highness, are you aware that as of recently you have the highest approval rating of any prince in history that this country has had?” was the first question asked to him.

“Yes, I read it in a newspaper on the journey here,” he replied, trying to still sound humble despite how proud he felt about it. His sudden rise in popularity was almost certainly thanks to Kim’s interview back in the spring, that was for certain.

And if the journalists were asking about that, then there was no doubt what the next questions would be about…

“Is it true that the reason you did not return home during the spring holidays is because you were spending time with Prince Kim? It has already been noted that you partook in a dance with him at the Peace Ball last year, and took him on a city tour, and you seem very close with him indeed – can we get an official statement on that?”

Oh, stupid nosy reporters. Max had known they were going to ask him about his “friendship” with Kim at some point, he had just hoped it wouldn’t be literally the moment he arrived. It seemed personal privacy was the price to pay of being royalty. And how was he meant to answer? Simply saying “no comment” would do nothing to stop speculation, in fact it would be more likely to have the opposite effect. But he still didn’t want people prying into his and Kim’s relationship!

Taking a deep breath, he said, “Prince Kim hasn’t been home for almost 2 years. The least I could do is keep him company. And as for an ‘official statement’, I think you all know perfectly well I wouldn’t just broadcast my personal life to the entire country whether there was anything significant about it or not. So there really is no point asking.”

There, hopefully that might have placated them a bit. Even if it sounded slightly sarcastic. He looked over the reporters to see that they were all looking rather unhappy, and unhappy reporters were always a bad thing – unhappy reviews and articles led to an unhappy populace. And his approval rating had just gone up to historical levels as well! He couldn’t let that fall!

But how to keep the reporters happy? They wanted a story, and he certainly was not about to open the floodgates to interviews about how he and Kim got together by admitting that it was true. Lying wouldn’t feel right either, even if that was the most sensible decision. No one would fall for it anyway. And he could only avoid the question entirely by giving the reporters something else to write about, some sensational new story that would distract them from this. But what?

Well, there was one thing. But it would probably be a stupid idea to say it right now. A stupid, bad, reckless idea, one that had a very high chance of backfiring, one that was not thought out anywhere near well enough to do on anything other than the spur of the moment.

It was a very _Kim_ idea.

Trying not to sound nervous, Max leaned over the fence railing and said, “However, I know you all want a news story that people will actually be interested in, so there is one thing I’ll finally admit.”

The reporters looked up again, a similar kind of impatient enthusiasm in their eyes as Alya often had when looking for a scoop. Max allowed the thought of Alya, fantastic friend and spymaster supreme, to calm his mind somewhat before wiping his sweaty palms on the side of his shirt and dropping what would surely be the ultimate news story of the year.

“The rumours are true. I’m gay. That is all. Goodbye.”

He barely even heard the triumphant gasps of the reporters, having turned around and headed into the palace the second he had finished speaking. He didn’t even want to _think_ about what he had just done. But striding through the palace, heading towards the basement levels to do what he had been planning to from the start, of course he couldn’t help thinking about it.

It wasn’t like anyone would be particularly surprised. Really, it had been a matter of time. His approval rating was ridiculously high too, so the chances of the commoners for some reason being upset at this were very low indeed. He didn’t really have anything to worry about at all, not even his accepting family, nor the leaders of neighbouring countries who had already chosen the decidedly not straight Queen Sol as head of the International Alliance.

Yet it had still been nerve-wracking. Coming out to an entire country! It was no simple feat.

_Be proud of yourself,_ he thought, walking even faster. Maybe it was best to distract his mind from this for a while, at least until tomorrow morning when this would inevitably be all over the news.

He made his way down to the basements, the areas of the palace that had been dungeons hundreds of years ago. When he was younger he had used one of these rooms as a tech lab back when he had first gained an interest in electronics. He hadn’t been there for a quite a while, nowadays doing all his work back up in his room. But there was something he needed to fetch.

He went all the way to the back of the room where there was a table with a huge, dusty sheet draped over it. Pulling off the sheet, he picked up the little metal figure that had been underneath.

Ah, yes – slightly dusty, but other than that, good as new. Max pressed the power button on it and watched as it whirred into life. Yes, yes, it still seemed to be working, simple as it was. Excellent! Now to take this upstairs and work on it for the next two months. He had promised Kim that he would, after all, and he needed something to put some effort into – not to mention that right now, he needed something to distract his mind from the news story that was undoubtedly being broadcast to every station in the country at this very moment.

And what better distraction was there than making an automaton?

“Good to see you again, Markov,” he said to the little robot in his hands. “Time to give you an upgrade.”


	57. The duelling tournament

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, mildly spoilery for season 2 because of A Certain New Character, but nothing much. Everyone who is still reading this, I have no idea how you're so patient but I love you very much <3

“How are things going?” Kim asked down the phone. “Your approval rating hasn’t gone down, has it?”

“Surprisingly, it’s actually increased slightly,” Max replied. “I’ve mostly been busy working on Markov so I haven’t spent much time looking at the news, but it seems that the citizens are happy to get to know their prince a little better. Quite honestly, it wasn’t even a surprise to most people.”

“That’s awesome!” Kim said, his worries vanishing. “Oh, I’m so relieved to hear that. And how’s Markov doing?”

There was a kind of excited spark to Max’s voice suddenly. “He’s coming along fantastically! I knew robotics was fun, but I had forgotten it was _this_ fun. I really should have done this so much sooner! Markov speaks quite a lot now, there are still bugs to sort out, but hopefully I’ll be able to fix those soon, maybe even in time for the wedding if I work hard enough, so then you’ll get to meet him too, and…”

He continued gushing about his little robot friend for quite a while. Kim just sat there with a dopey smile on his face, content to listen. This all sounded so exciting – he couldn’t wait to meet Max’s robot! He’d never even met a robot before in his life. It was so weird, really, how could a metal electronic machine actually _speak?_ Surely magic had to be involved somehow? But no, according to Max it was all just science. That was the coolest thing ever.

“And what about you?” Max said finally. “How have your holidays been so far? Is Queen Sol nice?”

“Queen Sol is freaking awesome!” Kim said. “It’s only been a week but I’ve already had so much fun. It’s like having a cool big sister. The other day she took me bowling, but not like normal bowling, it was massive bowling with giant skittles taller than a person, and you had to throw this massive inflatable ball at them, it was amazing!”

“That does sound fun!”

“Yeah! And she took me to the 3D cinema and I watched a movie in 3D, like with those glasses on, it was so cool. I did get a headache but still, totally worth it. And there’s been this duelling competition going on over the past few days and I got to the finals!”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks! The final match is in like an hour, so I thought I’d call you first, because I haven’t seen you in a while and I miss you…”

“Aww, I miss you too. But I’ll see you soon, don’t worry. Good luck for your match – I’m sure you’ll do well!”

Kim just wanted to hug Max through the phone. “Thanks… I mean of course I’ll do well, I’m the best at duelling. I’m probably even better than Adrien at this point. No one else here is that good, so I’m sure I’ll win. And the prize is this super cool trophy, so I’m not letting a snake take it this time.”

Max was chuckling away on the other end. “I may be all the way over in another country, but pretend I’m cheering for you! And so is Markov!”

“Max, you’re so sweet. I love you so much.”

“Oh Kim…” He sounded rather flustered. It was adorable, but all it did was make Kim miss him even more, so he changed the subject.

“Also I’ll get to finally meet Princess Penny and Jagged Stone next week, it’s gonna be awesome.”

“And you’ll meet the crocodile too, I presume?”

Kim had very much been trying not to think about that. “Haha yeah… I guess…”

“Well I hope you have fun with them. I should probably get back to my work now, but it was so nice to chat with you. Please call again soon!”

“I will! Say hi to Markov for me!”

Even after hanging up, Kim couldn’t get his stupid grin off his face. It was strange how being away from Max was just causing him to fall further and further in love, when he had been worried the opposite might happen. Even Sol could probably tell, considering how much Kim kept going on about Max all the time. He couldn’t help it! Everything reminded him of Max in some way or another.

Anyway, for now he had to get his mind back to duelling. The final match hopefully wouldn’t be too difficult. It wasn’t like any of the others had been. Looking at the clock, he decided to head down to the tournament grounds already, so that he wouldn’t be late.

 

 

The weather was warm and sunny. Plenty of the servants had turned up to watch the match, as well as some palace guests who were here for the wedding early, just like Kim was. Queen Sol herself was sitting in the stands, a large parasol over her head and a fan in hand. She waved at Kim, who waved back with his sword. This was reminding him oddly of the lacrosse match back in the winter holidays, though hopefully this match wouldn’t turn out such a disaster!

The opponent walked onto the grounds right at the last minute. They were decked entirely in red, with a helmet that fully covered their head and didn’t even leave their eyes visible, like the medieval knights from paintings in history books. Kim had never met this person before – he wasn’t even sure of their name! But hopefully they wouldn’t even be able to see out of that helmet, and then he’d get an easy win. Perfect.

Queen Sol herself stood up to announce the start of the match with a megaphone once everything was ready and everyone was in place. “Let the final match of the tournament begin!”

With that, Kim lunged forwards straight into an attack. His tactics were usually to be aggressive enough to intimidate the opponent into a quick loss.

This time, however, it didn’t work.

This opponent was _ruthless_. They were quicker, smarter, and more aggressive than anyone else Kim had ever faced. Even Adrien had never been this good.

Gritting his teeth, Kim forced himself to focus properly now. No more being complacent. He had to win that trophy. He was the best, and he had to prove it.

The battle was long and tough, with the crowd gasping every few seconds whenever one of them made a particularly risky attack. Kim was pulling out all the stops, and yet the opponent still seemed to be ahead of him every step of the way – why weren’t they losing already?! This was the worst!

Eventually the unthinkable happened. The opponent got the upper hand. Kim was left sitting on the ground, stunned, his own sword knocked out of his hand and the enemy one pointed straight at his throat.

Considering how brutal that match had been, he half expected the opponent to just finish things off by skewering him and ending his life before any poisoned chocolates ever could.

Instead they sheathed their sword, removed their gloves, then took off their helmet–

“Finally, a worthy opponent,” said the striking young lady now standing before him. Her voice was raspy, her cheeks were covered in freckles, and her short hair was the same odd bluish-black colour that Marinette’s was.

Kim hadn’t been expecting his opponent to be quite that young – he had, truthfully, sort of been expecting some kind of immortal monstrous abomination, thinking that no human person could have enough strength to beat him. But no, it was just a regular human, and one who looked around the same age as him too.

She held out a hand to help him up. Still stunned, he took it and got to his feet. As if from a distance, he could hear the crowd cheering. But they weren’t cheering for him, and he wasn’t going to get that trophy. He had actually been _beaten_.

“You are Prince Kim, aren’t you?” she asked him now.

“Yeah,” he said, wondering how she knew. To be fair, he had been bragging all week to any servants who would listen about how he was definitely going to win the tournament, so it might have been that. Or the TV interview back in spring. But then again, this girl had skin pale enough to rival Juleka’s, unlike many of the citizens here, so it was possible that she was a guest just like Kim was.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said, though her very slight smile seemed fake enough to prove the contrary. “I’m a fellow royal guest here for the wedding too. My name is Kagami.”

Kagami… Princess of a distant country to the far east that Kim could not recall the name of, off the top of his head. He was sure he had read her name somewhere while doing homework for his world studies lessons, though. It was so weird to actually be meeting her.

And so annoying to have lost a duel against her…

Well, no point being a sore loser. He was far past that. Instead he swallowed his pride and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. That was fun.”

Her smile seemed more genuine now as she shook his hand. “It was indeed. Perhaps we could duel each other again sometime.”

_No way_ , he thought.

“Uh… sure.”

“Good. I look forward to it.”

She nodded her head at him, almost in a slight bow, before turning around and heading towards the cheering stands, where Queen Sol was waiting to award her the trophy. Kim watched and tried his hardest not to feel jealous. He really had done his absolute best, maybe not at the beginning but certainly later on, and it still wasn’t good enough. Kagami was just better at duelling. Fair enough.

Oh, but he so liked winning…

He barely paid any attention as Kagami was given the trophy, the crowd cheering for her wildly, then starting to leave as the match was over. He merely stood there with an odd feeling of humiliation descending on him. Losing was never fun, ever, even if he was better at dealing with it now. And losing a match he had been so sure of winning? In front of everyone he had showed off at? They probably all thought of him as a loser now, and in more than one sense of the word…

“Prince Kim?”

It was Kagami again, now with the trophy in her arms.

“You can just call me Kim,” he muttered.

“Right, Kim.” She cleared her throat. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Is it true that you enjoy playing tennis?”

Tennis? Of course he did. Tennis was the _Marinette_ sport for him. The sport that he and his old friend used to play together for hours and hours every single day when they were kids. It always lifted his spirits.

“Yep,” he replied.

“So do I. I hear you can be very competitive. Perhaps, if we have a tennis tournament, you might get to win that one instead. And then you’d get a trophy too.”

“I know you’re just trying to be nice,” he said, “but you really don’t need to take pity on me. It’s fine.”

“Apologies. It’s just…” She turned aside a little. “It’s the first time I’ve been away from home without my mother with me. I thought it would be a good opportunity to finally make some friends my age. I’m not very good at it.”

She wanted to be friends? Well why hadn’t she said so before?

“Of course I’ll be your friend!” Kim said. “Anyone who can beat me at a duelling tournament has gotta be cool.”

She looked a little taken aback by his sudden change in tone for a few seconds, but quickly recovered and smiled at him. “Thank you. Anyone who can give me such a tough fight must also be… _cool_. So, um, what do we do now?”

The stands were almost empty by now, most of the crowd having left. Kim hadn’t really planned to do anything in particular for the rest of the day, but he had an idea.

“We play tennis, of course!” He grabbed her arm and started pulling her along, to her surprise. “You wanted to, right new friend? Well then we should! And my other friends are gonna be here in August too so I’ll introduce you to them as well when they get here, they’re really cool! We’ll make sure you’ve got loads of friends to keep in touch with by the time you go back home…”

He turned back to see that her smile was much less restrained now. Good, so his friendliness was working! If there was one thing going to school had taught him, it was that sometimes other people were quiet, or shy, and wanted to be friends but weren’t sure how to go about it. Kim, on the other hand, was none of those things. So why not use his confidence to kickstart new friendships whenever he could?

And plus, it would be fun having another friend here. Queen Sol was cool and everything, but often very busy running her country and preparing for the wedding, and anyway she was so old that sometimes the generational gap showed itself. Having Kagami around would be nice.

 

 

 

Over in her own kingdom, Pharaoh Alix was lounging on her actual throne for once, never usually bothering to sit somewhere so uncomfortable but feeling extra royal today for some reason. Her pet snake, as usual, was curled up around her arm. Jalil was on babysitting duty like he often was, though he mostly was just ignoring her in favour of leaning against the wall and reading a book.

“This is so weird,” Alix said, snapping shut the newspaper she had been looking through and tossing it aside. “How the hell did Max’s approval rating go _up?_ Like maybe I’ve been over in backwards Europe for too long, but I didn’t think people were that accepting!”

“He was just confirming something his country already knew,” Jalil said, not even bothering to look up from his book. “And they’re glad to see him opening up. Royals these days are kind of more like celebrities, you know, people like it when they’re not being so mysterious and old-fashioned anymore.”

Well that was lame. She hadn’t _chosen_ to be a “celebrity”, she didn’t want the media snooping around in her life or having to tiptoe around everywhere to avoid ruining her reputation. But it seemed that that was what the citizens wanted. Alix knew that her approval rating, though very high for an actual ruling monarch, was nowhere near as high as it could be. No one really knew much about her. It was better that way – she wasn’t sure how her citizens would react if they knew their pharaoh was a reckless little delinquent.

“Speaking of celebrities,” she said, changing the subject, “are you coming along to Princess Penny’s wedding?”

“Yes, of course. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”

“What do you mean?!”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you’ll break your arm again. Or get into a brawl with some foreign diplomat. Or use that ‘Flower Pharaoh’ reputation you told me about as an excuse to kidnap the hired flower girl and take her place. Or–”

“I get it,” she said, sinking into the throne and crossing her arms. “But for the record, you’re never there to ‘keep an eye on me’ at school, and I don’t get into trouble there.”

He finally looked up from the book, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh fine, maybe a little bit of trouble,” she said quickly. “But I’m not a little kid anymore.”

“Good point! In that case maybe the _betrothal plague_ will hit you too this time.”

She recoiled further into her seat. It was often considered good luck around these parts to get engaged to someone on the day of someone else’s wedding, so the nickname ‘betrothal plague’ was given to the phenomenon of young people always being hit on at wedding parties. Many people just used it as an excuse to easily find a sweetheart. Alix had only been about 11 at the last wedding she attended, but she very clearly remembered Jalil having to hide under a chair by the end of it in order to avoid swarms of zealous fangirls.

Or at least, that was how he had put it. Surely it couldn’t have been that bad.

“It’s not gonna happen,” she said. “I’m not old enough.”

He grinned. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah! I’m only 17…”

Oh… 17. Almost 18, in fact.

In other words, _old enough_.

“See?” Jalil said, seeing the look of horror on her face.

“But I’m a monarch!” she said. “People will be too scared to talk to me… right? And I have a pet snake… a venomous one… so surely…”

“I wouldn’t count on that putting off everyone.”

“But then what will?”

He shrugged. “No idea. Though I suppose you could always try the Prince Max method. That might work.”

Prince Max method? What on earth was he talking about?

Wait… oh…

“I’m not coming out to everyone, no way,” she said.

“Well why not? It seemed to work fine for Max.”

“Yeah but like, I’d have to _explain_. No one knows what aromantic or asexual means, they’ll think I’m a plant or something. I had to go and read some obscure science journal to find out! And plus… no one will believe me…”

“How do you know?”

She hoped she didn’t sound too bitter. “Dad didn’t.”

“Oh… well then, I guess you’ll have to end up hiding under a chair the whole evening.”

She nodded glumly, expecting the worst. Of course she could intentionally try and scare people away, like she used to do by accident, but… no, her days of intimidation were over. Maybe she would end up just having to hide under a chair and hoping for a miracle.

 

 

 

 

Jagged Stone and Princess Penny returned from their Atlantican tour soon enough. It was so far away, across the vast western ocean like the kingdom of Césaire was, that they were quite tired and jet-lagged on their return, needing to rest before being introduced to anyone. In the meantime, while sightseeing in the nearby city, Kim and Kagami bought copies of Jagged Stone’s new bestselling autobiography in order to know him a little better – though Kim didn’t actually bother to read his.

They finally got to meet them on their third day back. Queen Sol had decided it would be nice if Jagged could get to have lunch with his “young royal fans” and had organized it especially for them. Kim had spent the entire previous day listening to every Jagged Stone cassette he could find in preparation, so that at least he would know some of the songs and not sound like a total out-of-the-loop moron. Kagami already seemed to know a lot of it – apparently her kingdom was just as techy and advanced as these ones.

First they were introduced to Princess Penny, who looked much like a younger version of her mother, but with shockingly bright hair that was cut so short that it didn’t even fall over her ears. She looked unlike any princess Kim had ever seen before.

“So nice to meet you both!” she said to them. “My fiancé is just on his way…”

From the corridor outside came the sound of a thunderous electric guitar chord. The next second Jagged Stone himself was sliding into the room on his knees across the slippery marble floor, guitar in hand, striking a pose.

Kim already knew what he looked like – he had seen the crazy purple hair and loud outfits on the covers of cassettes and on billboards and posters in cities. But it was still so bizarre to actually see the rock star himself right in front of his eyes, larger than life, somehow even crazier than he could have ever imagined.

“Hey kids!” Jagged leapt to his feet. “Are you ready to attend the most epic wedding of your lifetime?”

Before either of them could reply, the crocodile had pattered into the room after its owner. Jagged leaned down to give its scales a little rub, and it responded by giving him an affectionate lick.

Kim stepped backwards.

That was a _crocodile_. An actual, real one. He had never seen one in person before.

It was long, green, scaly, its gaping maw was filled to the brim with dozens and dozens of pointy teeth…

“Wanna stroke Fang?” Jagged offered in that iconic odd accent of his.

The crocodile looked up at them, opening its mouth in what might have been an attempt at a smile. All that served was to make it look even more dangerous.

“I would love to,” Kagami said, as polite and stoic as ever. She stepped forwards, leaned down, and very gently placed a hand on Fang’s scales.

_It’s just a crocodile_ , Kim told himself. Crocodiles were nothing. They didn’t have venom. If Kim could get over his fear of a cobra enough to make friends with it, then surely this relatively harmless creature would be easy to deal with in comparison. And plus, Kagami had managed to stroke it. He wasn’t going to have her beating him at duels and then showing him up too. He was Prince Kim the fearless, afraid of nothing!

Taking a deep breath, he took a step closer to the monster. It looked up at him. Could it sense fear? Some animals could do that, couldn’t they?

Never mind. He took another cautious step, then very slowly crouched down until he was mere inches away from the mass of fangs that this crocodile was named after. Were the teeth the only thing dangerous about it? It had tiny little legs, surely it couldn’t get anywhere.

_I could easily outrun this thing._

The thought entered Kim’s mind automatically, and he couldn’t help but smile. Of course he could outrun this creature. He was quick, and it was slow. Nothing to be afraid of.

Feeling way more smug now, he put his hand on the scales and gave them a gentle stroke. Huh, it felt a lot like leather. The crocodile now stuck out its tongue and was wagging its tail, almost like a little dog.

Why had he been scared of this creature again?

“Anyway, I’m starving,” Jagged said, standing up again and taking Fang’s leash. “Time for food! Come on, guys!” He and Fang went over to the table, and Kim and the others quickly followed.

Wow… Kim had stroked a crocodile today. An actual _crocodile_. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone about that. Max was going to be so proud of him.


	58. Betrothal plague

Considering how close by their countries were, Max and Alix arrived by aeroplane on the morning of the wedding itself. Kim had spent most of the time leading up to it playing tennis with his new friend Kagami, watching Jagged Stone’s music rehearsal sessions, and scoping out the wedding feast hall looking for a place to hide from the somewhat terrifying “betrothal plague” that Queen Sol had warned him about. Perhaps if this wedding had taken place a year or so earlier then he wouldn’t have minded it at all, but now that he had Max, well…

 

The entrance hall was where Sol was greeting all the guests, so Kim stood in one of the mostly deserted corridors just outside with Kagami beside him, keeping an eye out. Sol had said that she would send his friends this way so they could see him as soon as possible. Sure enough Max turned up soon, still in informal travelling clothes for the moment.

It had been so long since Kim had last seen him in person. Over a month! Even their regular phone conversations couldn’t stop him missing his sweetheart dearly. But now Max was _here_ , and this palace suddenly felt like home again, and everything was a little brighter.

“Max!” Kim rushed over to him and hugged him tight, lifting him off the ground. Oh, he had missed being able to do that…

“Kim? It’s so good to see you again!” Max was laughing, hugging him in return. “I missed you!”

“I missed you too! How are you? Is everything good? Did you bring Markov?”

“I did, I did! There probably won’t be time to introduce you to him before the wedding so he’s on sleep mode for now to save his battery power, but I’m staying the night so I can show you to him later, there’s still a few bugs to sort out but he’s coming along great…”

Hearing Max’s voice in real life was so much better than through a telephone. Kim just carried on hugging him, listening to him speak, forgetting about everything else in the world… until another familiar voice pulled him out of it.

“Excuse me, my turn to have a dramatic reunion now!”

Kim put Max down and turned around to see Alix and her pet snake standing there, just having arrived. Of course – he hadn’t seen her in over a month either. Oddly enough he hadn’t realized how much he missed her too, but now it hit him. Everything was always way more _fun_ with her around.

He kneeled down and hugged her tight too, giving the snake a quick stroke as he did so. “Is this dramatic enough?”

“No, but whatever. And you don’t need to literally kneel down to hug me! I’m not that small!”

“Yes you are. You’re tiny.”

“Shut up. Now go away and let me hug Max, who isn’t ridiculously tall.”

“I’m not ridi–”

She shoved him off and went to pull Max into a hug, who was chuckling away at his two idiot friends. Kim turned again to see that Kagami was watching with a mild look of horror on her face.

“Uh sorry, we’re really informal,” he said to her, knowing how uptight and proper she tended to be. “It’s ‘cause these are my schoolfriends. At school we see each other literally all the time so there’s no point being formal.”

Kagami still looked surprised for a few seconds, but then she smiled. “You really care about your friends, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course! Lemme introduce you to them!” He cleared his throat and turned to the other two. “Guys, this is Princess Kagami, the one who won the sword duel. She’s awesome. And Kagami, this tiny one is Pharaoh Alix, the coolest best friend ever in the world, and this is Prince Max, my… uh…”

He trailed off. Kagami just smiled again though.

“Your ‘sweet friend’, I know. Everyone knows.”

Even she knew? Well, Kim supposed he probably had been pretty obvious about it…

“It’s an honour to meet you, Your Highness,” Max was saying, using his formal voice that Kim hadn’t heard in so long.

“Likewise. And you too, Pharaoh.”

“You can just call me Alix…”

Kim glanced at the clock on the wall nearby. There wasn’t that much time left before the wedding, and he hadn’t got ready or even done his hair yet. He had been too impatient to see his friends again.

“We can meet up again later,” he said quickly. “I have to go get ready.”

“More like spend hours putting gel in your hair to impress Max,” Alix scoffed. “But yeah, I guess I should go polish my headdress.”

“We all need to get ready, really,” Max said, checking his wristwatch. “The wedding will start before we know it and I’d prefer not to be late. I’ll see you all later!”

He rushed off. Kim couldn’t help but stare after him for a few seconds, his heart sinking a little. Thanks to the limited time and the others being here, he hadn’t even got to kiss Max. It had been so long since he’d last done that, and he had been looking forward to it!

Well… he had indeed found a hidey-hole near the wedding feast hall earlier when scoping it out… so there would be a time and place to make up for that later, right…?

 

 

 

The wedding itself was mostly boring and traditional, other than the strangely psychedelic clothing that Penny and Jagged were wearing and the presence of a crocodile beside them as they took their vows. The fact that there was a TV crew recording the whole thing was somewhat unusual too. But then again, not only was it a royal wedding, Jagged Stone was a celebrity too. This was something that all the commoners wanted to see.

The wedding feast afterwards was much more eventful. Jagged’s music was blasting over the speakers and the TV crew flitted from place to place, recording snippets of the conversations of mingling royalty and nobility. There was food everywhere, every table covered with bites to eat, servers wandering around with trays that people could take snacks from.

And, of course, there was the _betrothal plague_.

What with the earlier seating arrangements separating monarchs from everyone else, Alix had lost track of where Kim and Max were. She scanned her eyes around the hall but couldn’t see them. She couldn’t even see Kagami anywhere! But then again, it was hard to see anything at all when everyone here just had to be so much taller than her…

“Jalil, do you see anyone I know?” she asked him, since at least he was a sensible height.

“Hmm, there’s that annoying duke guy from the–”

“Anyone I actually care about, I mean.”

“Oh. No, I don’t.”

She sighed, taking a mini-sandwich from the table next to her and taking a bite. “Well at least I haven’t caught the ‘plague’ yet…”

“Don’t jinx yourself.”

“Well it’s true! No one’s yet–”

She stopped abruptly, noticing that some random spotty-faced noble was shuffling around nearby, a flower in hand. He smiled nervously at her when she saw him.

“Um… Your H-Highness… I m-mean Your Majesty! I… uh… w-would like to… um… I mean… would y-you like to… er…”

“What do you want?” she said. The snake hissed a little menacingly, causing the noble to back away in shock.

“N-never mind! Bye!” He ran off and disappeared into the crowd.

Alix gave the snake a stroke. “Good work, buddy. You’re the only suitor I need.”

Jalil frowned down at her, concerned. “Alix, that is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard you say, and you’ve said a lot of weird things in your life.”

“I was _joking_ , sheesh, I’m not gonna marry a snake. But I’m certainly not marrying any human either, so…” She grabbed a few more sandwiches. “I’m off to find somewhere to hide. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck. I guess I should probably hide somewhere too, though unlike you I’m not small enough to fit under a chair anymore…”

Why was everyone making fun of her height today?! Alix silently vowed right there that she would _not_ hide under a chair, just to spite Jalil, and walked off into the crowd looking for somewhere else to go.

Right… she had been to this palace before on the odd occasion, and she was pretty sure there was a store room off to the side somewhere. One year she had left the door open slightly and got Jalil to help her balance a bucket of water on top, and when one of the nobles had gone over to shut the door, well… yeah, she didn’t like thinking about how long she had been grounded for after that. But the store room itself would be an ideal place to hang out for a while without anyone hitting on her.

She just about managed to get there without any unwanted attention. The TV crew were over on the other side of the hall for now and most people wanted to get their moment in the spotlight, so were hanging around there too, and here it was far less crowded. Perhaps being smaller was good too, since no one really took any notice of her. She was free to run up to the door, look around to make sure no one was watching, then opened it to see–

Oh. Freaking Kim and Max had got there first. So that was where they had been this whole time! And considering the way they jumped at the door opening, both very red in the face and suddenly acting very suspiciously overly-casual, Max not even wearing his glasses, she could guess why they hadn’t invited her to join them. _Scientific research_ , of course. And it just had to be her who walked right in on it.

“Ohhhhh my god! Haven’t you two ever heard of locking the _goddamn door?!”_

She didn’t even wait for a reply for before slamming the door shut again and running off.

 

Kim grinned sheepishly, running a hand through his hair and leaning over to actually lock the door this time. “Whoops… I kinda… forgot…”

Max was grinning too. They had both forgotten. It was almost impossible to remember anything sensible right now, though. Kim hadn’t been able to hang out with Max for so long that being with him now was making him feel… kind of a little drunk, really. Some puny store room was not the best place for a catch-up date, but it didn’t matter. Anywhere was nice when Max was with him. It didn’t even matter that his outfit was getting creased because it wasn’t designed for hugging people, or that his hair was probably _totally_ messed up by now considering how Max could barely keep his hands off it, or that Max probably couldn’t see much anyway since he had taken off his glasses so they wouldn’t get in the way…

Kim put his arms back around Max, pulling him in close, and kissed him again. There was plenty of time left, and the whole month of July to make up for. Getting kisses from his sweetheart was one of the most magical feelings in the universe. He really was feeling like he’d had one too many glasses of wine now, dizzy and unsteady and hopelessly in love, and he didn’t want it to end.

 

 

Alix, meanwhile, had resigned herself to standing by the drinks table and doing the usual trick of mixing together as many of them as possible to make it taste awful. Her heart wasn’t really in it, though. Kim and Max seemed so _happy_ – was she missing out on something?

Well, at least she was a lot happier right now than in any of the other timelines. For starters, though she really hated thinking about it all considering how stupidly messed up and tragic everything was, this was the only timeline in which she was actually attending the wedding. In one timeline she was still under house arrest and losing more brain cells by the second, in another she was abdicated and in exile, wandering around the countryside as a rather unhappy nomad, in another she was still mourning the loss of Max despite it having been several months ago since the chocolates incident, and of course in one timeline she was _dead_.

Dumping an entire spoonful of chutney into the glass and mixing it absent-mindedly, wondering if she should ever dare talk to the exiled timeline twin again, her thoughts were interrupted by a squad of giggling teenage nobility swaggering over to her. All dudes, too. The kind of smug, arrogant, annoying dudes who tended to be the bullies on those TV sitcoms. She could just tell.

About to set her snake loose to scare them off pre-emptively, she noticed that the TV crew had also made their way over, the camera guy hovering nearby with his giant camera and microphone hanging off his shoulders. Well in that case she probably shouldn’t do anything stupid right now, not if it was going to be broadcast on TV. Best to just be polite. She could do that, right?

“Hello, Your Majesty,” one of the nobles said to her, his buddies nudging him forward and laughing. He put on a cocky grin and put his arm out to lean against the wall, a little too close for comfort. “You seem kinda lonely. Is your snake scaring everyone away? ‘Cause I’m not scared. So if you need a sweetheart for the dance floor, I’ll be your guy…”

Ew, as if. But still, something was stirring in her memory. The way this guy was towering over her, leaning an arm on the wall, running a hand through his hair, being stupidly overconfident, it really reminded her of… _something_ …

Oh, of course! It was such a long time ago now, but Kim was pretty much the exact same way when she had first met him. No wonder he had annoyed her so much at the start, before he actually got decent. He had literally been acting _exactly_ like this the first time they had ever met each other, right down to the mannerisms.

But wait… did that mean he had been flirting with her?!

Yeah, he probably had… he did used to have a crush on her, after all… and it had taken her this long to realize. She would definitely have to ask him about that. And try very hard not to make fun of him for it. Even though it was hilarious.

Anyway, now was not the time to be reminiscing – she had to do something. Should she just turn this guy down politely? But what reason would she give? A TV crew member was right there, waiting for her answer along with the rest of the nation.

The glass in her hand gave her an idea, probably a bad one, but the reckless side of her kicked in before she could stop it. Smirking, she held the glass out at him and said, “Only if you can down this entire drink in one go.”

The noble looked taken aback for a second, but quickly recovered. “Sure, that’s easy. Anything for you, Your Majesty.”

He winked and took the glass. Alix watched and tried not to laugh as the noble began to drink, only to start coughing and hold the drink at arm’s reach, a grimace on his face. There was far too much in that drink for an _amateur_ to tolerate. Ketchup, mayo, salt, pepper, chutney, garlic dip…

“Let me try now, you loser,” one of the other nobles said, snatching the glass off his gagging friend and taking a swig. The next second he had spat it out all over his collar. “W-what… what the heck is in this?! No one can drink this! It’s impossible!”

All the nobles were now looking at her in shock. Without breaking eye contact, Alix took the drink, downed the entire thing in one go, handed the glass back, and walked off without a word.

 

As soon as she was out of sight, she sprinted to the nearest toilets and made it just in time to throw up. Over the years she had often had the odd taste of her evil concoctions, but never the entire thing – and it was _disgusting!_ Why had she even done that? Maybe she wanted people to think she was superhuman, when the truth was she was just stubborn…

Well hopefully none of those nobles would think about asking her out again. But that wouldn’t stop anyone else from trying. This was going to be so tedious, and she only had her snake to keep her company!

She took a handful of mints from the supply bowl as she headed back into the hall, stuffing them all in her mouth and hoping that would dull the taste of that awful drink. Part of her was considering hiding in the toilets the whole time, but there were servants stationed at the entrances who would know she was in there. No, she would just have to brave the plague again.

At least she had her sceptre-phone, so she could attempt to get answers for a certain question. She pulled it out of her pocket, unfolded it from its compact-form, then sent a message to Kim.

_I know you’re busy right now and won’t answer this, but you know the first time we ever spoke to each other? You were flirting, weren’t you?_

She put the phone back in her pocket, certainly not expecting a reply from someone who was too busy smooching Max to even bother _locking a door_ let alone answer a message. Seriously though, how did people not find making out boring? Because it was! It was boring! And kind of gross too, when you stopped to really think about it, which you had to because it was so boring that there was nothing else to think about while doing it.

Or maybe she just had a screw loose, and those science journals had made some mistake. After all, she had never met anyone else like her…

Someone tapped her shoulder. She jumped and turned around, expecting the worst, only to see that it was Kagami there. Oh, thank goodness. Someone to hide from the plague with.

“You look relieved,” Kagami noted.

“Yep. I hate boys.” For a split-second Alix regretted saying it – it had just slipped out – but Kagami just smiled.

“I can relate to that. They have been very persistent today.”

“You’ve been hit by the plague too?” That made sense. Kagami was a mysterious sword-fighting princess from a distant land, and a pretty one too.

“I have indeed. It’s a shame I’ll never be interested in any of them.”

“Yeah, me too,” Alix said. “They’re so rude and arrogant and smug jerks who care more about seeming cool and strong than they care about other people! And when I act like that I get in trouble, but they’re allowed to get away with it! I hate them all so much…”

She trailed off, a pang of guilt hitting her. Two of her closest friends were boys. And yeah, they were idiots, but they were idiots that she liked hanging out with.

“Okay, maybe some of them are okay,” she said. “But not in a way that makes this betrothal plague thing tolerable. Dudes just use this as an excuse to get desperate sweethearts or be a creep or whatever.”

“Perhaps girls should make the first moves more often,” Kagami said. “Give them a taste of their own medicine.”

“Maybe… I’m still not going near any of them, though.”

“Neither am I.” Kagami suddenly held out a flower, her freckled face turning pink. “Boys aren’t my type anyway.”

As oblivious as Alix could be at times, even she knew what it meant when a girl was giving her a flower, blushing, mentioning how much she didn’t like boys, during the betrothal plague. It meant that Princess Kagami was _hitting on her_.

“Um, I’ll be really honest,” Alix said, trying to sound as nice as possible. “First of all, having a chick flirting with me for once is very refreshing, so thank you for that, I’m totally flattered. Second of all, same here, boys are definitely not my type. But… uh…”

She was half tempted to just accept the flower anyway. Was it really a big deal? But she didn’t want Kagami getting the wrong idea, either. She had already gone through years of wondering if her lack of interest in guys made her a lesbian, only to eventually come to the conclusion that no, even as awesome as girls were, they did not inspire the mythical mushy feelings that were meant to happen. Which had sort of sucked at first, but she’d eventually got used to it.

“I’m not really interested in romance or sweethearts or stuff,” she said eventually, gently pushing the flower back towards Kagami. “No matter the gender. Um, sorry.”

Kagami, thankfully, did not look even remotely disappointed. “Thank you for being honest. It was worth a try.”

“Well thanks for taking it well. For the record, I would definitely rather go out with you than with like, any other guy here.”

Kagami put the flower back on the nearby display that she apparently had taken it from. “You never need to accept anyone you don’t want to. I suppose maybe being aro must seem lonely at times.”

The being lonely part clicked. The other part, though…

“Aro?”

“Aromantic.”

That word! The one from the science journal!

“You know that word too?” Alix said, her mood shooting up so fast she couldn’t stop herself grinning.

Kagami nodded slightly, like a mini-bow. “I didn’t before I read Jagged’s autobiography.”

“Wait, are you saying he mentions it in his book?! Is he ‘aro’ too?”

“He does indeed mention it in his book, describing what it means and coming up with the short-form nickname for it,” Kagami explained. “He isn’t aro, he’s in love with Penny. But he does mention that he is ace. Short-form of asexual. He found the terms in a science journal and decided there needed to be more public awareness, so he’s using his platform as a rock star to inform people about it.”

No way! This was too good to be true! Jagged Stone’s book was only available in Nubia for now, but apparently it was already a bestseller and was being released all over the continent in the next few weeks. Which meant everyone would read it, and everyone would learn what this all meant. And then Alix wouldn’t have to worry about it ever again, and the science journals had been right after all, and there really were other people like her out there. People who were “aro” and “ace”.

“I presume you’re very pleased about this,” Kagami said, smiling. “You should buy the book.”

“Oh heck yes, I am _so_ buying the book, as soon as I can! Thank you, Kagami, you amazing person, you are my new best friend and I’m finding you a sweetheart right now.” Alix took the flower, thrust it into Kagami’s hand, then grabbed her arm and started pulling her along. “Come on, let’s go look for cute chicks for you.”

Kagami laughed, less restrained than usual. “You’re all so eager to help me! I’m enjoying my new friendships very much.”

Alix was barely listening – she had just spotted a likely candidate. A young duchess with short blue hair. No one who had short blue hair was straight, right? And she was wearing breeches, too. Juleka did that sometimes at formal events, and Juleka was a lesbian.

“Go ask her out!” Alix pushed Kagami towards the blue-haired duchess and then backed off towards the wall to watch. It was odd how, in this situation, the idea of matchmaking actually seemed kind of… well, fun! It had started to get tedious back when she was setting up Kim and Max, since neither of those idiots would take even the most obvious hints, but Kagami seemed to be more straightforward. Maybe this would actually be successful.

Alix’s phone buzzed. She checked it to see that Kim had replied indeed.

_Yeah fine I was. In my defence I mistook you for being hot and also thought you would take less than 2 years to notice._

Mistook? Really??? Selfish liar of a friend, there was no mistake about it. And it hadn’t been 2 years, it had been like… slightly under 2 years. So there.

She looked up to see that Kagami and the blue-haired duchess were heading off towards the dancefloor together, arm-in-arm. Yes, so her matchmaking had actually worked! Awesome! Today hadn’t been a total loss after all. She looked back down at her phone and sent a reply.

_Kim, you literally used to think my hair is actually pink. You are not allowed to make fun of me for being oblivious._

Yeah, that was good. Best to make fun of him for something other than pillows, for once.

Hm, and now what? Hopefully, miraculously avoid anyone else until the wedding party was over and then she’d get to go hang out with her friends properly and meet that little robot Max kept talking about. Maybe… maybe hiding under a chair was the best option after all for now?

The snake, almost as if reading her thoughts, nodded at her and flicked its tail over towards the nearest set of chairs.

“Alright, buddy,” she said, looking around to make sure no one was watching, then going and crawling underneath it until she was out of sight. “Let’s play rock-paper-scissors to pass the time. And I’m not letting you win this time!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Markov was gonna be in this chapter but it got too long so I guess you'll have to wait >:D
> 
> (please don't ask me how a snake plays rock-paper-scissors okay, he can already play lacrosse and Monopoly and understand French and is lowkey psychic and a Kimax shipper just don't question these things)


	59. Markov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm I think if I’ve got this right, in total there’s gonna be about 75 chapters or so? Maybe a bit under that. Which means that I’m not that far away from the end holy moly
> 
> Also Markov is in it a lot from now on, which isn’t particularly spoilery, but uh, spoiler warning anyway I guess?

“Hello. My name is Markov. It’s so nice to finally meet Max’s friends!”

Kim just stared, unable to say anything for several seconds. He and Alix were sitting on the bed while Max stood in front of them holding up the tiny little machine thing, small enough to fit into his palms.

And the machine had _spoken_.

Sure, it didn’t have a mouth or anything. Just a painted metal and plastic sphere for a head. But still. That was definitely the sound of a voice, as odd and unreal as it sounded, and it had come out of that cute little lump of metal and wires.

How was this even possible? How could you infuse a metal sphere with the exact right kind of electricity to enable it to actually speak real words, like a human? How could you program a screen on it, showing big round blinking dots for eyes? How was that possible by science alone? How was it not _magic?_

The next second, Max took his hands away. Kim held his breath – but the robot did not fall. The propeller at the top of its “head” began spinning fast enough to keep it hovering in mid-air. It blinked at them a few more times, waiting for a reaction.

“Max told me that you may be surprised when you first see me. Surprise is an emotion that arises when one is confronted with unexpected events, and causes humans to experience lag. But he also said that there is a high probability that you will eventually react with joy. I very much hope so! Max has been working very hard to equip me with anti-gravity mechanics and an expanded vocabulary, as well as the ability to constantly increase the complexity of my AI by learning from new experiences, so I am sure you will be impressed. He also calls me a chatterbox, so for now I shall silently await your responses.”

Kim wanted to respond, but words were failing him. A machine was talking to him. An actual, artificial machine. An automaton that Max had created from scratch, so advanced that it could converse with people like actual humans would. A real robot, created from the power of science alone.

“Holy shit,” Alix muttered.

“You must be Pharaoh Alix!” Markov said, flying over to her and bobbing up and down with his dotted eyes transforming into upturned arcs, giving him the impression of smiling despite not having a mouth. “Max told me that you are the only member of royalty he knows that is capable of using forbidden commoner curse words. He told me all about you! I’m so excited to meet you!”

Alix tentatively lifted a finger and gently poked Markov a few times. “Oh my god… can you like… actually see me? Right now?”

“Affirmative. Max installed cameras that act as visual detectors and I process the information through my CPU much like humans do with their brains. You appear to be approximately between 140-145 centimetres in height, though it is simply an estimate as you are sitting down, and there is a reptile seated on your shoulders. Upon closer inspection it appears to be a member of the species _N. regensis_ , common name: queen cobra. My internal database informs me that it is a good-tempered but extremely venomous species of snake.”

Markov’s voice, though unhuman-like, had an endearing lilt to it. It was not monotone, like Kim had been expecting. It seemed that Max had worked hard to make Markov sound like he actually had emotions, like real humans.

“Dude, you are so cool,” Alix said, a grin on her face now. “Max did such an amazing job. When he said he was making a robot I thought he meant like those automatons in haunted houses and stuff. I didn’t realize you were gonna be some adorable little sidekick instead!”

Markov’s eyes transformed into little hearts for a few seconds. “So you like me?”

“Heck yeah, I _love_ you! And so does the snake!”

Sure enough, the snake flicked the end of its tail up and gave Markov a little tap on the head. Markov gave a robotic little giggle and said, “Yay, I have made friends with Max’s friends! Now we are all friends!” He now turned to face Kim. “By process of elimination, you must be Prince Kim. Max talks about you a lot and how excited he is for you to meet me. But from his information I gained the impression that you are not the silent type. Are you still being affected by surprise?”

Okay wow, the little robot was now talking to _him_. Directly, in person. Addressing him by name.

This was just…

_The coolest thing ever!_

“Of course I’m surprised!” he said finally, leaping to his feet, too excited to stay seated any longer. “I’ve never met a robot before, this is awesome! You’re actually talking to me! You’re – you’re actually _speaking_ – like a real human – a machine that can speak–”

“Max programmed me with a pre-recorded voice so that I can express things in a way that is more widely understood by people, as opposed to text or Morse Code. Now I can be your friends!”

“A robot friend? That’s so cool! You can totally be my friend, Markov. You’re coming to school with us, right?”

Markov turned back to look at Max, who had been standing and watching in silent pride. “Max, am I coming to school with you? You said that you would make your decision based on the outcome of my interactions with your friends.”

Max nodded. “They like you, Markov! So I think I will take you to school after all. You’ll learn so much more there than by being on sleep mode back in the lab all year.”

Markov flew over to him, his eyes now stars. “Thank you, Max! I will learn so much. I will make you proud.”

“You’ve already made me proud! I’ll just have to take along the charging station, and you’ll have to learn to be quiet during class – I know you’re curious but the only reason Alix’s snake is allowed in class is because it doesn’t disrupt anyone’s learning, so you’ll need to do the same.”

“I will do it. I will be a diligent student.” He turned back to Kim and Alix. “Can you tell me about school? I wish to have as much information as possible about it so that I can prepare myself by accessing the relevant materials in my database.”

Kim didn’t know what half those words meant, but he didn’t need to. He launched into what was probably a rambling, incoherent, jumbled mess of a description of school, haphazardly telling Markov all about the teachers, the buildings, the students, everything that came to mind. Seeing this dear little speaking robot, all Kim wanted to do was help him as much as possible. And Markov kept listening, occasionally asking more questions, being so sweet that it just added to Kim’s enthusiasm. He was friends with a robot now, and not just any robot – the cutest little robot ever!

 

Alix herself was half-listening to the conversation, in awe of Max’s genius creation, but also thinking about something Markov had said.

“I have an idea,” she whispered to the snake. “Markov mentioned Morse code, right? Well you can’t speak like a human, but you do have a tail that can like tap things or whatever, and I know you’re pretty darn smart… so what do you say I teach you so that you can speak to me yourself?”

The snake nodded, its eyes practically sparkling. Evidently the little guy was looking forward to having a lot to say. And anyway, if Max was actually getting real work done by programming a robot, then surely Alix should stop being lazy and actually do something cool for once too. Like teaching a snake Morse code. That would certainly be a good end to the holidays, right?

 

 

 

 

Marinette watched the porters put the final pieces of luggage into her carriage. She turned back to Adrien, who stood clutching Plagg in his arms, clearly on the edge of tears although trying not to show it.

“I’ll be back in a few months,” she said. It broke her heart to leave him yet again, to be so far away where she could do nothing to help him if danger befell him! But this was the safest option, so yet again she was leaving for school, and yet again Adrien had to stay here under the guise of “Felix”, far from home and far from his friends.

“Are you sure you don’t want to take Plagg with you?” he asked, holding out the cat in question.

“No, you keep him. He likes you a lot. And maybe he’ll remind you of me…”

Marinette had to try hard not to cry too now. Why were goodbyes always so difficult? Spending the summer holidays with Adrien again had been so _fun_ , and now she would miss his company dearly until December. Who knew what would happen between now and then? What would the state of the world be like by the winter holidays?

“Alright, I’ll keep him,” Adrien said, putting a forced smile on his face. He bent down and dropped the cat by his feet, then walked forwards and pulled Marinette into a hug. She gladly returned it – this would be the last time she would be able to do this for a long while.

“Any messages you want me to deliver?” she asked.

“Tell Nino I miss him,” he whispered into her ear. “And Chloé, and Alya, and Kim and Max and Alix and Lila and Sabrina and Juleka and–”

“I get it!” Marinette allowed herself a little chuckle, even through her sadness. “You miss everyone. I’ll tell them that.”

“Thank you. And Marinette…”

He pulled away and looked right in her eyes.

“Have fun.”

She just stared. How was it possible to have fun without him? The idea of being away from him for so long was like staring into a deep tunnel with no end.

But then again… she remembered the spring dance. Seeing that chandelier dropping into the middle of the hall, hearing that Jagged Stone music playing, and then being whisked onto the dancefloor by Alya and Nino to join them in their fun. She remembered going to the gym with Kim, racing him on the treadmills until he fell off, and then watching in amusement as he and Max awkwardly tiptoed around their feelings for each other. She remembered befriending the noble who Plagg had belonged to, and she remembered Chloé being nicer towards her, and her reputation as cookie princess, and mistakenly stealing Kim’s phone that one time…

Good things had happened after all. It wasn’t all despair. There were times when she’d had fun, where she’d forgotten that the love of her life was waiting for her on the other side of the world.

A life without Adrien wasn’t the one that she wanted. But at least for now, if that was how things were going to be, then he was right – she should make the most of it. He wanted her to be happy.

She squeezed his hands tight in hers. “I will. And you have fun too, okay?”

“I promise I’ll try.”

That was all she needed. She gave him a kiss, then went over to the carriage doors where her parents were waiting to bid her goodbye. Oddly enough, though she always missed them like crazy too, it wasn’t quite so heart-breaking saying goodbye to them. They weren’t the ones in danger, the ones whose lives had been wrecked by the cruelty of the Agreste Empire. She could deal with leaving them for a little while. After all, she was always certain to be able to see them again soon. The same could not necessarily be said for Adrien.

Once the goodbyes were finished with, she climbed into the carriage and it set off down the path, away from the palace, carrying her towards her final year of school.

Adrien had picked Plagg up again and clutched him tight, tears now running down his face and falling into the cat’s fur. While he had been in Cheng so long that the place was starting to feel like home for him, he knew perfectly well that this was all temporary. His troubles were far from over.

Being stuck here… it was almost like house arrest again. At least this time he had a loving family to care for him, and he knew that if he really ever needed to leave, they would let him. But how could he leave when he knew what was waiting for him? If he ever left, it would mean being tracked down by guards and forced to go back to Agreste.

It would mean _facing his father_.

And he was not sure he had the strength to do that.

Tom and Sabine, having finished waving off their daughter, came over to Adrien and hugged him in one of their big family hugs.

“We’ll all miss her,” Sabine said, ruffling his hair the way he always wished his actual mother could have been there to do for him.

“Here, have a drink.” Tom let go and took a glass of orange juice off a nearby servant, holding it out at Adrien. “You’ll feel a little better.”

A refreshing drink of juice did sound nice. Still holding onto Plagg with one arm, he took the glass in his hand and–

It suddenly shattered, the pieces falling to the floor.

What…?

“I’m sorry!” he said quickly, letting go of Plagg and leaning down to help the servant who had rushed forward to clean up. “Sorry, I don’t know how that happened, I–”

“It’s alright, Felix,” Sabine said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “These things can happen. Is your hand hurt?”

“No… I’m fine…”

“Perhaps we should go inside,” Tom suggested. “You ought to have a rest.”

Adrien nodded glumly, and they steered him back inside the palace. His mind was whirring – what had just happened? He hadn’t even been holding the glass tight or anything. It had simply crumbled to bits within his grasp. Almost like magic.

But why?

 

 

 

For most of the holidays, Kim had completely forgotten about his country’s application to join the International Alliance. It wasn’t until he was back in his dorm room at school on 1st September, seeing his phone ringing with Queen Sol’s number, that he remembered again.

Today was the day when he would find out which way the vote had gone. Whether the leaders of the other countries would want him in or not. Over the holidays he was supposed to have been trying to impress them all, convince them that a prince such as him would be a worthy addition to their group. But he hadn’t done any of that! He’d been goofing off and having fun with Kagami almost the entire time.

He had made sure to get her phone number, of course, as she was home-tutored and would be returning to her own country, so he wouldn’t meet her again in the foreseeable future. But that kind of clever thought was not the sort of thing he should have been focusing on!

At least he should have remembered _after_ the wedding, even though there was not much time left. Max, Markov and Alix had all left the very next day but several leaders and ambassadors were staying longer, so he could have made efforts then. But he didn’t. It didn’t even occur to him, because he was an idiot, and he _forgot_.

And now Queen Sol was calling him with the results of the vote that was going to determine a whole lot more than just whether or not he was allowed in the cool countries’ special club. This was going to affect whether or not he would _live_. And whether or not there was a likely chance his country would be involved in a war against the most militaristic empire of all time.

Well, no use putting it off. He was Prince Kim, and he was not supposed to be afraid of anything. Hands shaking, he answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Ah Kim, good to hear you! You’ve made it back to school alright?”

The sound of Sol’s voice was enough to soothe his nerves a tiny amount. “Yeah, I’m here.”

“That’s good. Anyway, I have the letter here with the results of the vote. Shall I open it?”

“Um, yeah. Go for it.”

“You sound nervous. I just want to assure you that no matter what the results are, I will always support you, and so will all the friends you have made and the commoners you have impressed. You’ll always have allies, whether officially or not.”

Surely she would only be saying this if she didn’t believe he was going to make it, right? He listened intently as she opened the letter, the sound of rustling paper crackling through the speaker.

“Alright, let’s have a look…”

His hands were sweating. That was bad, wasn’t it? Phones were powered with electricity, and sweat conducted electricity, so maybe he would get electrocuted and it wouldn’t be the assassins that killed him off after all…

Queen Sol’s voice pulled him out of his shocking thoughts.

“You’ve been accepted! The vote was highly in your favour! Oh, this is wonderful news, Kim, I knew you could do it!”

Oh, thank god!

He laughed in relief, the fear of the past several months washing away in just a few seconds. His kingdom was in the International Alliance. The most powerful countries in the world were going to protect him. No one would dare send assassins after him now. He was _safe_.

Feeling dizzy, he sank to his knees. It was all going to be okay.

“I’m s-so glad,” he said down the phone, barely able to stop himself stumbling over his words. “Thank you so much for helping me with it, maman – I mean Your Majesty! No I mean – I mean Aunt Sol – I–”

“It’s alright!” She seemed to be laughing. “I’m very proud of you. Making enemies is easy, especially for people with reckless natures, but making alliances takes true goodness of heart. You have a good heart, Kim. And it’s paid off.”

Why was she always so nice to him, no matter what?

“I think I’m just lucky to have cool friends,” he admitted.

“Maybe. But this is more than luck. This is you showing potential to be a great leader. I have no doubt that your country will thrive thanks to you.”

Usually Kim looked to the future with apprehension – he hadn’t thought of himself as able to be a good king, at least not since he was about 15, when he had still been an arrogant jerk. But if Sol said it? He could believe it, maybe a little bit.

“Thank you,” he said, really meaning it. “Seriously, I can’t thank you enough.”

“It was my pleasure. I will always be here to help you when you need it, I promise. Let me know if you ever need anything else.”

“Thanks. I will.”

“I’ll leave you now to give the good news to your friends, and will make sure to contact you whenever you are needed as a representative, which shouldn’t be until the next Peace Ball at least. Oh – and one more thing! It seems you’ve been an inspiration to a certain someone. Though the next vote won’t happen until the following summer now, we’ve just received an application to join the International Alliance from the kingdom of Tsurugi.”

That name… that sounded so familiar! Where was that country again?

“Anyway, congratulations once again, and I look forward to seeing you again as a real representative of a member state this time. Goodbye, Kim!”

“Bye!”

He hung up and just sat on the floor for several minutes, grinning into his hands, half starting to cry. Not even Emperor Gabriel would dare provoke the wrath of the International Alliance. No more poisoned chocolates, no more living in fear that his existence would suddenly come to an end when he least expected it, no more having to rely on his friends to risk their lives protecting him through danger.

From now on, at least relatively speaking, he was safe. He was going to live.


	60. .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha remember the sports day in chapter 7? And the (true) vacuum cleaner story in 50? Wild times...

The final year of school started off much better than either the first or the second had. Kim did not need to worry about suitors turning down courting gifts, or making enemies with people who should be allies, or catching the flu and being put into quarantine for several tedious months. No – this time round, things were actually looking up.

After letting Alya and the rest of his friends know the results of the International Alliance vote, she had told him that she would still keep a lookout for him just in case, but that he was certainly under much less pressure of assassination now, and the main threat was gone. That alone would have been enough to lift Kim’s spirits to levels they had not been at for a year at least, but as it was, something else was around to cheer him up even more.

Markov, Max’s little robot friend, was a hit with students and teachers alike. He followed Max around everywhere and commented on everything with that cute voice of his, asking questions all the time, his curiosity never satisfied, constantly learning more with each passing day. While he kept quiet in class, the rest of the time he absorbed knowledge like a sponge, making friends with everyone he could as he did so.

“You can’t do my homework for me, Markov!” Max laughed, sitting in the library with his robotic friend, while plenty of awed nobles watched from their seats.

“But I would like to help you!” Markov said, his dot eyes increasing in size to make him look even more adorable than usual. “You are having trouble, so–”

“Nnnnnope, no I’m not, I’m fine!” Max looked down at his work, his face warm. “Not having trouble, definitely not.”

Markov settled down onto the table beside him and decreased his volume until it was barely audible. “Max? All signs indicate that you are indeed unable to complete your homework without assistance.”

“Fine,” he replied, equally as quiet. “But I don’t want anyone else knowing that.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve always been good at homework, and everyone has a certain impression of me. I don’t want to lose my reputation.”

“So is that why you were saying that you are not struggling with the homework, despite that fact being false?”

“Yes.” Max grimaced. “It’s called lying.”

Markov paused for a few seconds. “I see. I have just searched through my database and found that word, along with its definition. I understand now. You were lying, because you wanted the others to believe a fact that is untrue. Because otherwise it would make you unhappy.”

“Yes…”

Telling Markov things like this did not feel good. But hey, he had to know.

“Happiness appears to be a complex human emotion,” Markov mused, his volume slightly louder now. “I am still not sure I can fully comprehend it, as it seems in some ways, arbitrary.”

“I don’t understand it myself, Markov, and I am a human. It’s alright.”

“Perhaps in time, with more knowledge, I will be able to experience this emotion for myself.”

 _I doubt it_ , Max thought to himself. Creating a human-like robot was one thing. Creating a robot that could actually experience emotions, on the other hand, was way beyond the limits of possibility.

“So,” Markov said, “would you like assistance with your homework?”

Max sighed, knowing it would take him forever without help. “Yes please. But don’t tell anyone.”

 

 

 

By the time sports day arrived, the weather girls were both in a bad mood due to some ridiculous dispute over their commoner approval rates, despite the fact that such a thing for nobles was considered highly inaccurate due to most commoners not being very familiar with the nobility. Unfortunately this resulted in a sudden torrential downpour – after the activities had already started.

“Can’t you cancel this?!” Chloé was screeching at Duke Damocles from under a rather flimsy parasol with Lila and Sabrina. “I wanted to do the egg and spoon race so I can beat Alya this time, but I’m not letting the rain ruin my hair!”

“Sorry, but the activities have already commenced and the serious races have already been completed so it wouldn’t be worth it…”

“That is totally ridiculous! You reschedule this sports day right now or I’ll send a letter to my father!”

“We don’t have the funds!” Damocles cried, wringing his hands through his sopping wet beard in shame. “There simply isn’t enough money to schedule another sports day, Your Imperial Highness!”

Chloé stopped yelling abruptly, silent for several seconds. “Not enough money? You mean… has the school’s budget been decreased?”

“Yes, it has… though of c-course I don’t blame your father, His Imperial Majesty the emperor, definitely not, I’m sure he must need the m-money for something important…”

“My father is siphoning money from the school?” She turned to Sabrina and Lila. “Ugh, was the money he taxes out of the poor commoners not enough? Whatever does he need all that money for? Forget sports day, Alya can have the trophy this year I suppose…”

She clicked her fingers, and the trio took the parasol and headed back inside. Damocles breathed a sigh of relief.

Just a little distance away, Kim stood with his arms over Max, forming a protective barrier from the rain. “Max, seriously, you should go stand under the shelter with the snake and Markov…”

“But then I won’t get to cheer for you!” Max said. “It’s just a bit of rain, it won’t hurt.”

“Won’t you get ill?”

“That’s just a misconception, I’ll be fine. And anyway, what about you? You’re getting soaked!”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right…”

They were interrupted by the arrival of Alix, who stormed up to them, grabbed Kim by the arm, and began dragging him away. “You. Three-legged race. Now.”

“Oh, uh, are we teaming up then?”

“Yes. You chickened out of it two years ago, but I’m not having that this time.” She took the rope that a nearby noble handed to her and bent down to tie their feet together. “This time we are a team, whether you like it or not.”

Kim was about to protest that he certainly had _not_ chickened out of it last time, before he suddenly remembered that the actual reason he hadn’t wanted to team up was arguably worse, so he kept quiet.

They lined up at the starting line, hardly anyone else taking part due to the crazy weather. Only Marinette and Alya stood in the row beside them, completely drenched but still grinning cheerfully. Max stood on the sidelines watching, along with the remaining teachers who hadn’t fled the storm yet. The track itself was muddy and half-flooded.

This was going to be… difficult.

The whistle to begin the race was barely audible over the downpour. Kim set off immediately, only for Alix to start complaining within less than a second.

“Hey, I’m short, don’t take such long strides! Go slower!”

“I’m not going that fast, it’s too slippery anyway!”

“Yeah but slow down a bit more, I can’t–”

“Mari and Alya are winning, we have to beat them!”

He was tempted to just pick her up and sprint to the end, but that would probably get them disqualified, not to mention that it would be a bit difficult when their feet were tied together. Going frustratingly slowly, he kept at it, until…

“Stop, my foot’s stuck!” he said. His shoe was trapped in the mud, and as much as he tried to pull it out, it wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, just take your shoe off and come on! We were almost catching up with them as well!”

“Ew, I’m not taking my shoe off, my socks will get all muddy–”

“Oh come on!”

He yanked his foot out of the shoe and, wincing, continued. “Fine… this is all your fault for making us go slow…”

“Are you blaming me for being short?”

“Oh shut up! Enough arguing, let’s just win this thing!”

He looked up to see that Marinette and Alya were almost at the finish line – already! No way, he couldn’t let them beat him! Well, not Marinette anyway. Right from childhood Marinette had been his opponent at everything, whether that was tennis or running or who could hold their breath the longest. Seeing her literally about to beat him at a race forced his rivalry instinct to kick in – with rather unfortunate side-effects.

Putting aside all concern for his teammate, he charged forward at top speed. He ignored the fact that poor Alix had slipped over and was now unhappily being dragged behind him through the swamp-like terrain, cursing him with as many different swear words as she could think of. He had to beat Marinette! He just had to!

By the time he reached the finish line it was too close to call. Who had crossed first? He turned towards a very unimpressed looking Lady Mendeleiev for the answer.

“Princesses Marinette and Alya are the winners,” she said. “And Prince Kim is disqualified for almost murdering his teammate.”

Marinette and Alya whooped, high fiving each other and running over to receive their trophy. Kim turned around and looked down to see…

Uh-oh. Now it hit him. Alix was sitting there in the churned-up remains of the waterlogged track, her hair and clothes covered in mud, both her shoes lost somewhere far behind. He did not doubt that had she not been coughing all the mucky water out of her lungs right now, she would have been yelling at him so much that it would make the sports day two years ago seem tame in comparison.

“Uh… I’m sorry…” He wasn’t sure how apologizing now would help. “I wasn’t thinking and I wanted to win and I…”

He stopped when he realized she had started _laughing_.

Okay, well… this was… good?

She untied the rope, but made no move to get up. “We’re such a disaster, aren’t we?”

“Well I am anyway,” Kim muttered.

“Yeah, well this one isn’t entirely your fault, ‘cause I’m the one who wanted to team up…” She tried to stand up now, but immediately slipped over again. “Ew, this stupid _mud_ just went down my _throat_ –” Trying again, she fell once more. “Oh – for god’s sake! Kim help me up, this stupid – I THINK A FROG JUST WENT DOWN MY FRONT, I HATE THIS – I’M NEVER GOING NEAR MUD AGAIN–”

He just stood there and watched her for far longer than he should have, resisting the urge to laugh. The sports day two years ago had been so different, and not just because of the weather. He hadn’t realized at the time that Alix’s intimidating personality was one that she dropped around friends, or that someone as cool and in-charge as she seemed to be could embarrass herself by slipping around and falling into the mud, or that she wasn’t some terrifying and bloodthirsty and strangely hot prince-killer.

She was actually just so… dorky.

He finally lent a hand to help her to her feet.

“Thanks,” she said. “About time, jeez.”

“Sorry, it’s just…” He looked at her grumpy mud-stained face, trying to figure out how to put it. “Honestly… what did I ever see in you?”

“Uh, excuse me?”

“Last sports day I thought you were way too cool for me. I liked you before I even knew you, and then it turned out you’re actually just an idiot, like me.”

“Thanks for the compliment, also I don’t care. Anyway, you wanna get out of this rain or not? Let’s go!”

Very carefully, she began walking off towards the paved paths where the mud problem was not so severe, almost slipping over a few times along the way. Kim watched his stupid dorky friend for a few seconds, wishing he could go back in time and tell his past self about this wacky race just to see the reaction. It was insane to think just how much everything had changed over the course of two short years…

 

 

 

The autumn ball was to take place just a few days later. Unfortunately, Max had caught a rather nasty cold and ended up spending the day in bed with Markov tending to him – while vehemently denying that his cold was caused by his brief stint in the rain. After all, neither Kim nor Alix were ill, and they had been the ones actually doing the race.

There was a knock on his door in the evening, and Markov answered to see that it was Kim there, not wearing the usual formal clothes that would be required for one attending the autumn ball.

“Hey Max, hey Markov,” he said, entering the room and shutting the door behind him. “You know when you’re ill you can get the servants to look after you, right?”

“I wanted to do it myself!” Markov said. “Human infections can easily be transmitted through close contact. The servants would have a high probability of becoming infected themselves, which would reduce their functioning like what has happened to Max. As I am unable to ‘catch a cold’ the best course of action is for me to look after Max instead until he is able to delete the virus from his system and function at full capacity.”

Max cleared his blocked-up throat. “Kim, aren’t you going to the autumn ball?”

Kim came and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Nah. What’s the point of going without you?”

“Kim, really…”

“Shhh.” He put the back of his hand against Max’s forehead. “Your temperature, it’s… uh… I don’t know. I can’t tell. Markov, does he have a high temperature?”

“Yes,” Markov said, whizzing over to them. “I checked 4.5 minutes ago. Max’s temperature is 39.2°C, which is above the normal human temperature. He appears to be overheating. Though he has also warned me to not take minor fluctuations in temperature too seriously, as being in your vicinity causes him to overheat too, though he has not been able to give a sufficient reason why.”

Max looked away, knowing he must be “overheating” right at that second. While Markov was starting to get the hang of how humans reacted in normal situations, being in love was something the poor robot could simply not comprehend. To him, it must have seemed like Max totally malfunctioned whenever Kim was around, with nothing to explain it.

“Kim, you appear to be overheating too,” Markov was saying now. “The blood flow to your cheeks has increased substantially. Why is that happening? Is the room at an uncomfortably warm temperature for you?”

Kim rubbed a hand on the back of his neck rather nervously. “Um… I’m just… I’m…”

“He’s blushing,” Max said, before coughing again – his throat was just killing him. Next time he was not taking good health for granted.

“Blushing,” Markov repeated, followed by a pause as he inevitably accessed his internal database. “An involuntary reaction, usually caused by emotions such as embarrassment, anger, or love. I see.”

Max sank further into the bed, pulling the blanket right up to his face. Hearing Markov talk about things like _blushing_ just felt so surreal right now, and he was not sure whether that was anything to do with his fever or not. Being ill did tend to fog his brain up. And so did being near Kim, though in a different way…

“Kim, though I know my advice will likely be futile, I suggest you leave the room,” Markov said. “The longer you stay in close proximity to Max, the likelier it is that you will become infected too.”

“I know that,” Kim said. “It’s okay. I don’t really care.”

“Really? But your physical state is important to you, you have told me that before. Being at reduced functioning will make you unhappy.”

“I don’t mind. I just wanna be with Max tonight. This time last year when I had the flu, he was there for me, so…”

“But Max told me he was vaccinated against that particular flu strain, meaning that he was unable to become infected, so there was no risk to being near you. But you are very likely to become ill if you stay here right now.”

“That’s fine, it’s just a cold. I wanted to spend the evening of the autumn ball with Max, so I will.”

Kim’s voice was just so soft and warm. Max descended further into the blankets, knowing that this sudden feeling of being all flushed was nothing to do with his cold. He had really wanted to spend this evening with Kim too. He just hadn’t expected to be stuck in bed with a blocked nose all day.

“Humans can be very illogical due to their emotions,” Markov said, a hint of amusement in his robotic voice. “There is so much for me to learn about. But humans seem to be better at predicting each other’s emotions than I am. Alix warned me that if Kim comes to visit Max, he will be unlikely to leave for quite some time.”

Kim chuckled. “Yeah, she knows us way too well…”

“Anyway, I’m going to go and see her right now. She also told me that she is not attending the autumn ball, and that if I join her then she will teach me how to skateboard! I would very much like to learn. And if Kim is here to take care of Max, then I am free to leave.”

Max cleared his throat again. “Markov, are you sure you want to leave? You’ve never been anywhere without me, I mean, I trust you, but…”

“I’ll be fine, Max! Alix will take care of me. You should be more worried about yourself! Though perhaps you are not worried at all, because Kim is with you, and your thought processes seem to be oddly impaired whenever that is the case…”

Max pulled the covers all the way up to his eyes. “Okay fine, bye Markov!”

“Bye! See you later, when I’m a skater!”

He chuckled at his little rhyme, then flew out of the room. Max still stayed mostly hidden beneath the blankets. What with Markov constantly around, it had been quite a while since he’d had more than a moment alone with Kim. He knew how much Kim cared about his own health, always staying far away from anyone who had a cold and making sure he ate plenty of healthy food to build a strong immune system, and yet he was willing to put all that aside for Max…

“Markov is so awesome,” Kim said, sincere admiration in his voice. “You did such an amazing job, seriously. I keep forgetting he’s a robot, ‘cause he acts so much like an actual person.”

Oh, that was just so sweet! And oddly true – even Max sometimes forgot that Markov was a machine, rather than an actual thinking being. But then again, what was the difference? Was there one? Could a machine “think”? Or was Max too fever-ridden and out-of-it for his brain to be making any sense right now?

“And now he’s gonna learn to skateboard,” Kim continued. “I thought a skateboarding snake was cool, but a skateboarding robot is even cooler.” He ran a hand over Max’s hair. “And you’re the coolest of all. Not literally, ‘cause you have a temperature, but you know what I mean. You are so worth missing the autumn ball for.”

“You’ve never even been to the autumn ball,” Max mumbled from under the blankets.

“Huh, true. I guess I’ll never get to now, since this is our last one. But you know what? I don’t care. Hanging out with a friend or a sweetheart is always gonna be better.” Kim lifted up the corner of the blankets and crawled under, laying beside Max and pulling in him for a cuddle. “Okay wow, you are absolutely boiling. Do you need some of that… para-whatsit?”

“Paracetamol,” Max breathed, wondering if Kim could feel his ridiculously fast heartbeat. “I already had one about 10 minutes ago, I’ll be fine…”

“Oh good. Tell me if you’re getting too warm and I’ll go get some water or something, okay?”

Of course Max was too warm, he was too wonderfully, _dizzyingly_ warm, but the last thing he wanted was for Kim to let go. Poor Kim, who was no doubt going to get ill as a reward for his efforts…

“You’ll catch the cold for definite,” Max said.

“Whatever. A cold’s no big deal. My immune system is the toughest ever, it’s totally gonna fight off all those germs, no problem.”

“Well then, since you don’t mind…” Max allowed himself to be a little self-indulgent. “…please don’t let go?”

Kim, in response, pulled him a little closer. “Aw, Max… I love you, you know?”

Max was not sure whether he was actually seeing heart symbols in Kim’s eyes, or whether that was the fever messing with him. Whatever it was, the expression on Kim’s face was cute. So very cute…

Half in a dream, he pulled away slightly just as Kim was about to kiss him, giggling. “I can’t breathe through my nose, it’s all blocked up.”

“Oh, well I guess you’ll have to wait till you can breathe before you get a kiss, then!”

“Or… you know…” Max was sure he was overheating again. As ill and tired as he was, he did not want to end the night at just a hug, though perhaps the fever was making him oddly reckless. “You can still kiss me, just… on the… um… I mean… I suppose I could just wear a scarf later, to hide the… um, if it shows…”

Kim was silent for a few seconds, blushing profusely. He traced a finger over Max’s neck, v-e-r-y lightly, following it with his eyes, seemingly lost in thought. Then he frowned and said, “Fine, but if Alix mentions anything about vacuum cleaners to you, kill her immediately. Don’t even ask, just kill her.”

What? Max was partially convinced he was already dreaming, or maybe the fever was making him hallucinate, or something like that. Because that didn’t make any logical sense whatsoever. Or did it?

“What’s wrong with vacuum cleaners?” he asked.

“Everything.”

“What does Alix have to do with it?”

Kim sighed. “If I tell you, do you promise not to make fun of me?”

“Yes.”

“And do you promise to murder Alix in cold blood if she ever brings it up?”

“Um… am I hallucinating?”

Kim laughed, before giving Max a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Okay fine, don’t kill her. But seriously, it’s really embarrassing, and I don’t want her bringing it up again, so uh… if it’s relevant, then please do wear a scarf tomorrow, okay sweetie?”

He was slowly running his finger across Max’s neck again, in a way that made it so difficult to think, especially with a fever.

Or maybe it was nothing to do with the fever, and more that Max did not really care about vacuum cleaners, and just wanted Kim to hurry up and start being more romantic already…

“Okay,” he agreed.

 

 

 

The next morning Kim lay in bed, his nose and throat burning, almost certainly running a high fever. Had he caught Max’s cold? Yep. Was it worth it? Also yep.

He had already sent Max a message on his phone and got a reply saying that while Max was better today, he was indeed still ill, and still had to remain in bed with Markov taking care of him. Kim waited in his own room for someone to check up on him – he had missed breakfast, so surely a maid or nurse or someone would be sent up to his room. For good measure he sent a message to Alix too, to let her know why he wouldn’t be around.

Soon enough there was a knock on his door. He called for whoever it was to come in, not bothering to look. He just lay there staring at the ceiling. Being ill was so unpleasant, and he was so unaccustomed to it! Though at least this was nowhere near as bad as the flu had been last year. This was just a simple cold, thank goodness. It would pass quickly.

“What’s up, beanstalk? I hear you got ill too.”

He almost jumped out of his skin – that was no nurse! Shuffling up until he was sitting against the back panel of the bedframe, he saw that sure enough, it was none other than Pharaoh Alix who was walking over to him, carrying a bowl of something steaming. The snake was sitting on her shoulders as usual.

“You haven’t already gone and seen Max, have you?” Kim asked. His voice sounded hoarser than usual.

“Yep.” She sat up on the desk next to him. “He’s a bit better now, though he says he’s cold. Won’t take off that scarf, even indoors. He’s turning into Jalil, honestly.”

Oh, thank goodness, Max was wearing a scarf after all…

“Anyway, Markov’s too busy taking care of him to take care of you too,” she continued, “so I guess that’s up to me.”

“Don’t you have school?”

“It’s a Saturday, you Kimbecile. No school. I snuck into the kitchens and stole some soup for you, so you’d better appreciate it.” She handed the bowl to him. “You’d better not pass your cold onto me too, okay?”

“You could have just avoided that problem by letting the servants take care of me!”

“But you’re my best friend. I didn’t get to help you out when you had the flu, so I’m doing it now, okay? Now eat your soup. Or drink it, or whatever.”

That was so oddly nice of her. He took a spoonful of soup and tried to drink it, but it was so hot it burnt his tongue. “I think I’ll wait a while…”

“Yeah, take your time. I, um, kinda wanted to talk to you about something anyway.” She was fiddling around with the jewel on her headdress. “It’s not a big deal. I just wanted to know.”

Oh no, what was she going to say? People saying that things weren’t a big deal usually meant that they were a big deal.

“You and Max,” she began, “you obviously really like each other loads. And you’re super happy together, which is awesome. And like… you once told me that having crushes on people is overrated. But that was before you actually had a sweetheart. Now you’ve got Max, and I can tell you care about him a lot. So, um, have you changed your mind about that? Am I… am I missing out? Because I don’t like stuff like that?”

As calm as she tried to sound, even through the grogginess of being ill Kim could tell that she was worried. Last year when he’d had the flu, having a fever had caused him to say what was on his mind with no heed to consequences – no matter how cheesy. And having a fever right now, even if it was less severe, was causing him to feel much the same way.

“You’re not missing out on anything!” he said. “You’re the coolest friend ever!”

She smiled a little. “Thanks, but me being the coolest friend ever doesn’t mean I’m not missing out on something that’s obviously so _nice_ and _important_ to everyone.”

“No, no, wait, lemme explain…”

His brain was too addled to think properly, but he forced himself to try. Alix deserved it.

“What I’m trying to say is that you’re such a cool friend that it’s the same effect! I know I love hanging out with Max, but I love hanging out with you equally. Just ‘cause he’s my sweetheart, it doesn’t mean you’re not at the same level of importance! You’re so fun to hang out with and I think sometimes I take it for granted and I don’t show you I care enough, but if you really like me as much as I like you then I swear you’re not missing out on anything at all. You don’t have to be, like, _into_ someone to love them!”

Had any of that even made any sense? He was just saying the first things that came to mind, with no thought to whether or not it was actually coherent. And judging by the way she was staring at him and not saying anything, it probably hadn’t been coherent at all.

“Okay, nothing I’m saying right now makes sense,” he said, unable to even stop now. “But I really like being friends with you. It makes me happy. And it’s not the same way I love Max, but that doesn’t matter. You’re cool to be around and you’ve done so much to help me out and I don’t know what I’d do without you. And every time you’ve told me how much you care about me, like that time in first year when you turned me down, or on the Cupid Festival, it’s such a special feeling. It doesn’t matter if you’re aro. You still get that special feeling, and it doesn’t have to be romantic. You have people you love, so you’re not missing out on anything.”

His throat was sore enough to prevent him saying anything more, but he had pretty much run out of things to say anyway. At this point he would just end up repeating himself. He just wanted her to know how much she meant to him, and how important he considered their friendship – had he made that clear enough? Should he have even said anything at all?

He just took a spoonful of soup and forced it down. With his blocked nose he couldn’t taste it at all. He looked up again to see that Alix wasn’t looking at him; she seemed to be lost in thought. The snake slithered off onto the desk, where it slowly began tapping out something.

_\- . .-.. .-.. / .... .. -- / -.-- --- ..- / .-.. --- ...- . / .... .. -- !_

“What’s he saying?”

Alix had gone red. “Um… he says you should stop being a sentimental dork before he starts crying.”

_-. --- / .-. --- -- --- / .. / -- . .- -. - !_

“…And also he says you’re a punk bitch.”

Kim was sure she must be lying – though he wasn’t even sure that the snake was speaking real Morse code in the first place. Maybe it was just gibberish. There was no way a snake could learn Morse code, after all. Maybe Kim would have to learn it himself to see whether or not this was real.

“Anyway, now that I’ve delivered your soup I should be leaving…”

Alix hopped off the desk and picked up the snake. Had she got the answer she wanted here? It was impossible to tell, especially with this fever. Kim took another spoonful of soup as he watched her walk over to the door, hoping maybe she would return later and actually tell him whether or not she believed what he’d told her, or if he’d even made any sense.

She hesitated just before the door. The snake tapped a message on the side of her headdress.

_-.. --- / .. - !_

“Oh, fine…”

She turned around and finally looked at Kim properly.

“Kim, you seem kinda half delusional right now so you may not remember any of this anyway. But I guess I’ll say it.”

To his surprise, she smiled a little.

“I think of you as more than a friend, you know. I don’t mean in a mushy gross way! I’m still aro. But all the stuff you just said, it was… really nice. So thank you for that. And, um, we have been through a lot together. Sometimes I feel like the term ‘best friend’ just doesn’t cut it. Or maybe it does, and this is what it feels like to have a best friend after all… I mean, I don’t have much to compare it with, so maybe this is normal…”

She sighed and shook her head.

“I guess I’ll never really know. But what I’m trying to say is that you’re… you’re special to me. Yeah. And so to hear you say that I mean as much to you as Max does, that I’m special to you too… um… it makes me feel a lot better. And I believe you. I’m not missing out on anything. So thank you, Kim, for telling me all that, and for being my friend and beyond. Thank you for everything.”

Smiling at him so earnestly now, even blushing somewhat, truly meaning every word she was saying… If Kim hadn’t been struck down with illness he would have hugged her there and then for at least ten minutes. As it was he was barely holding back tears.

She was right though. Sometimes it did feel like “best friend” didn’t cut it. What else was there? True companion? Life partner? There were no words that could quite convey it. But maybe they didn’t need words anyway. They just _knew_.

It would have been a perfect wordless moment that could have lasted forever, had the snake not begun tapping out a new message.

_.... --- -.-. -.- . -.--_

Alix frowned at the snake. “Dude, what do you mean? Wait… you don’t mean… Max… and that scarf…?”

The snake nodded. She stared at it in shock for a few seconds, before suddenly grinning and pointing an accusatory finger at Kim.

“Oh, nice try Kim! I’ve just figured out what you and Max were up to yesterday! And why Max needs that scarf to hide his neck!”

Oh no… oh _no_ … that darned snake hadn’t told her via Morse code, had it? That was just unfair – he thought he had escaped!

But hopefully she wouldn’t bring up the–

“Ha, I guess you guys didn’t need a _vacuum cleaner_ after all, did you?”

She did. She brought it up. That stupid thing that was going to haunt Kim forever and ever now, a reckless deed from another timeline that he could never erase.

He hunched over his soup, refusing to look at her. “Please can you and your punk bitch snake get out of here before I stab you with this soup spoon?!”

She laughed a rather unnecessary, evil laugh. “Sure. See you later, vacuum cleaner!”

With that, she ran out of the door. Kim tried so hard not to smile – he shouldn’t find this funny! It should be annoying!

But even vacuum cleaners could not bring down his mood. He had the most amazing friend in the world, even if she was really irritating at times, even if she was a dork who he carelessly dragged through the mud to no avail, even if he had a rather embarrassing history with her. And he couldn’t help but smile, thinking about how special she was to him.

Maybe he had been ever so slightly wrong earlier. It wasn’t that having crushes was overrated, because to be honest, it wasn’t. Knowing that Max loved him back was always going to feel amazing. No, it was that having deep friendships was _underrated_. They were just as awesome – even to a hopeless romantic like Prince Kim.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this fic is meant to be Kimax but I realized half the time it reads more like ot3 and you know what I'm just gonna go with it, platonic sweethearts can be a thing okay


	61. A matter of luck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I originally wanted to write a royalty AU fic I had intended to have Marinette and Adrien as the main characters (for once in my life lol), so many of the major plot points were to do with them. It was only when I actually started planning it out and realizing 90% of the ideas I had were about Kim being an idiot that I reconsidered, and I'm glad I did. But that being said, Mari and Adrikins are still VERY IMPORTANT... like, "being awesome heroes and saving the day" kind of important... ;)

Once Max and Kim were well again, Markov was able to spend more time practising his new skateboarding tricks. Max also spent plenty of time upgrading him over the next few weeks, fixing bugs, enhancing his AI, and even giving him a little arm so that he could pick things up with it – and most importantly, give fist bumps.

For a while things seemed to really be looking up, especially compared with the dreary and dangerous previous several months. Everything was a little brighter, everyone a little happier. The atmosphere in the school in general was at a higher level than it had been in a long while. Sure, things weren’t perfect, but they were _better_. Was it because of Markov’s existence? Or was life just at a high point right now?

Whatever it was, by the time the oracle sessions rolled around, Kim was cheerful enough that he decided this time he would not change his mind at the last second – he was going to ask the question he really needed the answer to. Even if the answer would be bad, he could take it. At this point in time he was in a much better state of mind than he had been last year. It would be alright. And anyway, now that his kingdom was part of the International Alliance, surely it would be safe enough to return home soon.

 

It was Max’s turn first out of the trio, as usual. Markov had decided to wait outside, not wanting to interfere. It was sweet of him. He really did seem to act like a real human on the surface these days, even though he was far from it.

“So,” Master Fu said as Max sat down in front of him for the third and final time, “what is your question?”

Max had spent a long time thinking about it. There were plenty of questions he wanted answers to – _how is it possible for a snake to learn Morse code? Why is schoolwork not so easy anymore? Will I marry Kim?_ But he couldn’t ask questions about others, and there was nothing particularly eating away at him that he wanted to know about. He had also considered asking a “stupid” question, like Kim had a tradition of doing, but couldn’t even think of one of those.

He sighed and simply went for one of the most obvious questions possible. “Will I die from old age?”

Fu put his hands on his turtle for a few seconds, then looked up at Max and smiled. “Yes. So there is no need to fear over poisoned chocolates anymore.”

He knew about that?! Well… he was an oracle, and though Max was not entirely sure how Fu’s powers worked, he did certainly know more about everyone than he let on…

But still, it was a relief to know that he wasn’t going to die off anytime soon. He had an entire lifetime ahead of him. Hopefully a good lifetime, filled with happy events.

“Thank you,” he said, starting to get up.

“How is your robot?” Fu asked.

“Oh, you know about him? Markov’s fine, thanks, he’s waiting just outside.”

“From what I hear, he has made good friends with everyone.”

“He really has! Bringing him to school was the best idea ever, he’s really thriving here.” Max tried not to sound too full of himself, but he really was proud of having created such a smart little robot.

“What an incredible feat you have achieved, to program someone so intelligent at such a young age, and in such a short span of time,” Fu said, stroking that little beard of his.

“Well, others have created sophisticated robots too, so it’s not that big a deal…”

“Would you say your robot is more or less intelligent than Alix’s pet snake?”

Max paused to think. What kind of question was that?

“I’m not sure,” he said finally. “Maybe around the same.”

“And would you say Alix’s snake has a near-human level of intelligence?”

Well, it could understand everything that was going on, and could win Monopoly games and partake in lacrosse matches, and kind of even _speak_. It was a pretty darn smart snake.

“Yes,” he said.

“So then it follows that Markov, too, is near a human’s level of intelligence. You have programmed a robot that is more sophisticated than any other in the world.”

Max looked down, his face feeling warm. “No, I’m sure there’s other – I mean, Markov is intelligent, but a lot of that is down to him learning things, and – I’m not–”

“You created Markov, a being that is somewhat more than just a robot.” Fu was smiling at him. “You have a latent gift that you never even knew about.”

A latent gift? He didn’t mean like… superpowers, did he?

“I just happen to be good at robotics and programming,” Max said. “Markov has the ability to act human and learn from his experiences, because I programmed him that way. Not because he’s inherently… alive…”

He trailed off. True, Markov wasn’t alive, but it somehow hurt to say.

Fu just continued smiling. “Perhaps once you leave this room, you should ask him why he skateboards a lot these days.”

Fu knew about that too? He really knew everything. But anyway, what did that have to do with anything? Max had programmed Markov to be curious and want to learn new things, so it would make sense that he wanted to learn how to skateboard too.

“Alright, I’ll ask him.” Max stood up. “Thank you for your answers.”

“You are very welcome. I wish you all the best for the rest of your life. And…” Fu held out a bowl. “Would you like a complimentary mint on your way out?”

“Thanks.” Max took one, then left the room.

 

Sure enough, Markov was waiting outside with the others, and whizzed over to meet Max as Alix was called into the room next.

“Max, my friend! How was your oracle session? Did you get the answer you wanted?”

“Yes, I did,” Max replied. “Master Fu says I’ll die of old age, so I don’t need to worry.”

“That’s wonderful news! I still don’t understand, though – how is Master Fu able to predict the future with 100% accuracy? Humans should be unable to do so, or at least not without a large degree of error.”

“It’s magic.” Max hated saying it – why couldn’t magic make sense, like science did?

“Oh, so like how Alix is able to have knowledge of the events of parallel universes without accessing a wormhole to visit them herself? Or those two members of nobility remotely controlling local weather?”

“Yes, like that.”

“Hmm. Magic is something that I cannot make sense of.”

Markov was silent for a few seconds, probably looking up everything about magic that he could from his internal database. There wouldn’t be a lot in there, though. No one knew much about magic. Max decided to use the time to ask about what Fu had suggested.

“Markov, why do you skateboard a lot these days?”

“Max, you programmed me to learn about new things whenever I am able to. Skateboarding is something I very much wanted to learn about.”

Exactly. It wasn’t anything special – it was just his programming.

“But also…” Markov’s volume had decreased ever so slightly, and he spoke a little slower. “I have already learnt a sufficient amount about skateboarding. Yet I continue to do the activity. There does not appear to be a logical reason why.”

He bobbed up and down on the spot, blinking every few seconds, the sound of his internal parts whirring so loudly it could be heard over the propeller. Clearly he was thinking hard.

“Skateboarding causes my CPU to work at a faster rate. I return to that activity over and over as if I am compelled to by my programming, even though that is not the case. I just… _want_ to do it.”

That couldn’t be true. Markov spoke like a human, but it couldn’t mean anything. Robots didn’t _want_ things. It was impossible.

“Oh!” Markov’s eyes lit up into exclamation marks. “I understand now! My behaviour correlates with what is typically seen in humans and other living organisms. I participate in this activity for the same reason that Alix and her snake do. It is fun. I… enjoy it. What I am experiencing is happiness.”

Max didn’t say anything. He simply stood there, staring at his little creation, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing.

“Max! Max! This makes sense! I experience happiness when I skateboard, and that is why I want to do it again. Oh – it’s happening again right now! Can you hear the CPU whirring? My system seems to be functioning slightly differently from normal at this moment. It is a very odd sensation. It is possible that my logic pathways are malfunctioning a little. However, this is preferable to my normal state. Now I understand better why humans do activities that make them happy – I also would like to continue being happy. I understand it now! Max, I understand happiness! I am experiencing an emotion!”

By this point everyone else in the room had turned to watch Markov, who was now zipping around erratically, his volume much higher than normal. Max was sure his own logic pathways were malfunctioning too – could this really be happening?

Could a robot really be feeling emotion?

Could the robot that _Max himself created_ really be feeling happiness, right now? Just like a real human person?

“Max?” Markov floated up in front of him, question marks in his eyes. “Are you being affected by surprise? Is that why you are silent?”

Max just grabbed Markov out of the air and hugged him. “I’m so proud of you…”

It didn’t feel real. Markov was actually experiencing emotions. It was a fundamental fact that robots could not feel emotions, one that Max had never thought to doubt, and yet here it was.

“This is a hug, correct?” Markov asked. “My CPU speeds have increased again. You are making me happy, Max!”

Max blinked tears out of his eyes, aware that everyone else was still watching. He didn’t really want to cry right now.

“You’re making me happy too,” he said.

“I am? Good! I want to make you happy. Now that I know what happiness feels like, I want everyone to feel this way all the time. I will do my best to always make people happy.”

Oh, thank goodness. People were often telling horror stories of machines gone wrong, evil robots that ended up trying to take over the world, sci-fi stories set in the future where artificial intelligence became malevolent once gaining emotions.

But Markov was not like that. If he had a heart, that heart was good. He said he was going to make people happy, and Max believed it. Markov had already made a lot of people happy. Now it was just up to him to continue, and he surely would.

“Thank you, Markov,” Max said. “You’re the greatest robot in the world.”

 

 

Alix didn’t have any particular question to ask this year either. And plus, thanks to the whole timeline thing, she was very wary of asking a question that might get a bad answer. Maybe it was just best to get this thing over with by asking something inconsequential, and letting her life be the chaotic mystery it was supposed to be.

“So, what is your question?” Fu asked.

“Is anyone ever gonna correctly guess what happened with me and Kim in that lift that one time?”

Fu frowned. “Are you s–”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s what I want to ask, no I don’t want to ask something important. I already got my fair share of that last year, thanks.”

“Well, alright, that’s understandable…” Fu put his hands on Wayzz for a few seconds. “No, it doesn’t seem like anyone will ever guess… in fact, this is quite strange, but I can’t seem to be able to tell what happened either…”

“Yes, so the blood pact worked!”

“The what?!”

“Sorry, I can’t tell you.” She stood up to leave, taking a handful of the complimentary mints from the bowl without even being prompted. “If I break the blood pact, I will die horribly. That’s just how blood pacts work.”

Fu shook his head and smiled. “You are going to be one of the most interesting pharaohs to ever rule, you know.”

“Yeah, I hope so. Thanks for the answers.” She headed towards the door, then stopped just before she opened it, remembering something. “Hey, uh, can I quickly ask you something? Not an oracle question, just something about what you told me last year.”

“Of course.”

“Well you said last year that when someone’s guardian animal dies, the person will die too not very long afterwards. And that the stronger the person’s fighting spirit is, the longer they’ll last. So I wanted to know, how long exactly are we talking here? What’s a rough estimate?”

“There isn’t much research into it, but it seems to be two to three weeks at most. Why?”

Alix grinned. “I lasted a whole eight weeks without my snake in one timeline before kicking the bucket. Guess I must be awesome, then.”

Fu smiled, bowing his head. “Yes, you certainly are.”

“Cool. Thanks, and see you later.”

Well, there was a possibility she wouldn’t see Fu later. After all, this was her last year at school! But no… she’d surely meet him again, some day. She opened the door and walked back into the waiting room to see Max standing in the middle hugging Markov, and everyone else watching with expressions that seemed close to tears.

“Uh… what did I miss?”

Markov flew out of Max’s arms and over to Alix, little stars in his eyes. “I’m experiencing happiness! A real emotion! And I like it!”

She gave him a fist bump. “Nice, dude. I knew you could do it.”

“And did you get a good answer to your question?”

“Hell yeah, I did.”

“Yay! I am even more happy now!”

Jeez, Markov was so adorable. Alix had already guessed that the little robot felt emotions, considering the way he acted half the time, but it was nice to know that it was true now. He was just as much of a friend to her as any human was.

 

 

When Kim went into the oracle room, he had made his mind up properly this time. No more overthinking. For once, he just needed to be reckless and speak without any care for the consequences. Just like how he used to be.

“So, what is your question?” Fu asked.

Kim didn’t hesitate this time. “Will I be able to go home by the end of the school year?”

“Ah, I suspected you would ask that…” Fu put his hands on his turtle for a few seconds, then sat back. “Well, the answer is both yes and no.”

“Um… what does that mean?”

“You know about the timeline splits, don’t you? Well, another one is going to happen at some point in the future. In one timeline you will be able to go home this summer, and in the other you won’t. At present it is impossible for me to tell you which one you will end up in.”

His heart was sinking faster than a stone in water – all the timeline splits he knew about so far had been _bad_. He was lucky to be living in a good timeline right now, because on the other side were deaths, exiles, confinements…

“It’s strange,” Fu mused. “Timeline splits that so strongly affect people are rare, and yet they have been happening with frequency. Of course, there is a superpower that I know of that allows people to have some level of control over the splitting of timelines, and can therefore affect the fates of others, but such a power is extremely rare and I do not know anyone who has it…”

Kim sat silently, listening. Was it possible that there really was someone out there messing with timelines? But why? All it did was cause suffering.

“Anyway! On that topic, I have some good news for you too.”

Good news? Oh, thank goodness, he really needed that right now…

“You have much more control over your destiny than you would think,” Fu said. “Never let my words dictate your choices or give you a sense of hopelessness. The power of friendship can always help you out when you’re in a tough spot.”

The power of friendship? Kim had to hold back a laugh. That was so cheesy.

“I mean it. Being able to _think better and more rationally_ around someone smart, or _channel all your energy into action_ around someone reckless? It is not merely some quirk to be overlooked. It is a sign that friendship will play a bigger role in your life than in many other people’s. Perhaps it might even change your fate. Who knows?”

Okay wait, how did Fu know all that? That Kim always felt really smart around Max for no apparent reason? Or that being around Alix made him full of energy? So, was that actually to do with superpowers after all?

“Would you like a complimentary mint on your way out?”

Oh, right. Fu was holding that bowl out at him. Kim took a few, wondering if the answer he got this year counted as _good_ or not. All three of his oracle sessions had been somewhat bittersweet.

“Thank you,” he said, getting up to leave.

“You are very welcome. I wish you all the best for the rest of your life.”

And how long was that life going to be? He had been optimistic about things, but now he wasn’t sure anymore. Those stupid timelines seemed to still have it in for him, and who knew what was going to happen?

Well, never mind. He would just have to make the most of things.

 

 

He had barely even left the oracle room before Marinette was standing in front of him, hands on her hips, an odd smirk on her face.

“Prince Kim! I challenge you to a game of Monopoly!”

“Uh, what?”

“Sorry, that was a bit random.” Marinette giggled a little. “I just want to test out a certain new strategy of mine, and I know you like Monopoly. Is that okay?”

Kim grinned. “Of course! But no matter what strategy you’ve got, you’re gonna lose, because I’m awesome at Monopoly.”

“Is that why you lost against a snake that one time?”

“Pffff, I totally let the snake win. But I’m not gonna go so easy on you!”

“Great, that’s just what I wanted to hear! Let’s go, then!”

A Monopoly game against Marinette sounded fun – more fun than against an annoyingly smart snake, anyway. They went back to his room together and then began to play.

Usually Monopoly games were long, taking several hours, sometimes even stretching for days against particularly tough opponents. And usually you could only get so far being lucky, before running out of luck alone and having to rely on wits and actual tactics. So when Marinette managed to worm her way into getting both dark blue cards within the first five minutes, Kim chalked it up to luck and assumed that she would start failing soon, like everyone always did.

But she _didn’t_.

Within a few more rounds she had all three greens too. Then the oranges. Kim hoped that the chance cards would save him, but all he got was a “get out of jail free” card while Marinette ended up with bank errors in her favour giving her extra money, cards telling her to go to the next train station and buy it for herself, and to go to Go and pick up her salary.

How was she so endlessly lucky?!

By the time Kim lost, which was not very much later, his mood was very sour indeed. He tossed his remaining money at her and folded his arms.

“Congratulations, I guess… but you got lucky, so don’t take this as me being bad at Monopoly or anything…”

“You’re right, I did get lucky,” Marinette said, before stifling a yawn. “Phew, I’m exhausted…”

“Really? From what? Building so many hotels?”

“Kim, I should probably tell you something.” She looked down at the ground. “I was cheating.”

“What? But how? I was the banker and I didn’t see you stealing any money, and the dice isn’t loaded or anything–”

“Let me explain. At my oracle session just now, Fu said I can control luck. So I was using this Monopoly game to test it out. Every time I rolled the dice, I wished for luck to be in my favour, and it was. But it cost me energy every time. I think I could fall asleep in two seconds…”

Wait, Marinette had superpowers?! All Kim’s annoyance left him instantly.

“That is so cool, Mari! You can control luck? That’s the awesomest thing ever!”

She grinned, looking back up at him again. Sure enough she was much paler than she had been at the start of the game, with grey bags under her eyes now. “I’m glad you think so! But please don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret.”

“Thank you. And I’m sorry for tricking you into losing, I just really wanted to see if it worked.”

“Hey, it’s no problem. But next time you are forbidden from using your powers when we play.”

“Fair enough!”

“Are you going to tell anyone else about this?”

Marinette shrugged. “Alya, definitely. Maybe Nino. And… well, I would tell my _pet cat_ , but I’m not sure if I’ll be seeing him these upcoming holidays…”

“What? Why not?”

She lowered her voice. “I’m not going back to Cheng again this time. It’s getting suspicious. I always used to split my time pretty evenly between Cheng and Dupain, and yet I haven’t been to Dupain in so long! I should go back there, at least this time, and make sure to keep the cat safe and beyond suspicion…”

It must have been hurting her so much to have to stay away from Adrien when he was in all that danger. Kim remembered how grateful he was to have all his friends around to support him when under threat of assassination, and how much scarier things had been at the start of summer when he was alone for once. It must be like that for poor Adrien all the time.

“It’s alright though, he’s got my parents,” Marinette said. “They’re taking good care of him. I’ll get to see him again – I just have to wait a little longer this time, that’s all.” She stood up, but quickly sat back down with her hand to her head.

“You okay?”

“Just a little dizzy, that’s all…”

“Is this because you used your powers?”

She nodded, her already pale face going slightly green. “Next time I’ll save it for emergencies…”

Kim leaned over and grabbed a pack of cookies from the draw behind him, handing them to Marinette. “I know you made these for me, but you should probably eat them now. Get your strength back up.”

She took one and took a small bite out of it. “Oh, that’s a bit better. Thank you Kim.”

“Shush, no speaking. Just keep eating.”

He made sure she had finished at least two of the cookies before allowing her to try standing up again. This time she stayed on her feet, though swaying slightly.

“I’m fine now,” she insisted.

“Are you sure? You should probably take a nap or something, you still look really tired. If you want I’ll take you to your room, or you can just nap in here if you really want, I’ll go do something else for a while and leave you some peace…”

“Yes please.” She staggered over to the bed and flopped down on it. “Sorry. I’m never using my powers that much ever again.”

Kim put the covers over her, turned off the lights, and closed the curtains. “This reminds me of that one time you dared me to eat a worm and then I got sick and you had to look after me because we were too scared to tell the servants.”

Despite almost being asleep, Marinette chuckled. “I didn’t dare you to eat a worm! I said ‘Kim, don’t eat a worm’ and then you said ‘don’t tell me what to do’ and ate a worm!”

“Well whatever, I was like 6, I was an idiot! Anyway, have a good nap. I’ll be back in a few hours. I hope you feel better soon.”

“Thanks. You’re an awesome friend.”

He smiled, then left the room and closed the door behind him. An awesome friend? Of course he was. He and Marinette had been friends since, like, forever. And now, here at school, he had plenty of other friends too. According to Fu, friendship was going to be more important in his life than for others, even enough to affect his fate – whatever that meant. How did that even work? Was it superpowers, or was it mundane? Did it matter?


	62. No chocolate

Kim was partway through doing his hair for the winter party when a servant knocked at his door with a letter for him.

“Your Highness, this just arrived from the kingdom of Nubia,” the servant said, holding it out at him.

“Uh…” Kim looked down at his hands, currently sticky with hair gel. “Can you please open it for me? And read it out to me?”

The servant looked like she was stifling a grin, but sure enough, opened the letter and read. _“Dear Prince Kim, it is your friend Sol here. I would like to inform you that this year’s Peace Ball and subsequent International Alliance conferences will be taking place in Lahiffe during late-December. Usually leaders who do not wish to attend themselves would send a delegate in their place, however, this is not possible for you due to the difficulty in contacting your home country. As you are a new member of the Alliance I strongly advise you to come to Lahiffe and attend these meetings personally. I understand you were planning to stay with Prince Max in Kanté for the winter – perhaps bring him along too! I look forward to seeing you there. Kind regards, Queen Sol.”_

Lahiffe? That was Nino’s kingdom! In that case it would probably be fun to take a few weeks out of the winter holidays to go there and get to hang out with him too. And true, as a new member of the International Alliance, he would definitely have to go to all those boring meetings. It was so unfair that he couldn’t just send someone from home to go instead, someone who actually knew what they were doing!

“Thanks,” he said to the servant. “Um, I’ll reply later I guess. Can you just leave the letter on my table? Sorry, my hands are covered in goop right now so…”

The servant quickly stepped into the room and put the letter down, then returned to the door. “Is that all, Your Highness?”

“Yes, thanks.”

She bowed and left. The servants here were just so reserved, really! Everywhere else Kim’s travels had taken him, the servants smiled a lot and made polite small talk. Only here in Bourgeois were they expected to be as invisible as possible at all times. Less like actual people, more like… well, slaves…

 

 

 

This year’s winter party was like the previous ones, though what with the atmosphere in school still being at an all-time high, everyone seemed a lot happier. What was most surprising was when the weather duchesses, Aurore and Mireille, came across each other under the mistletoe right near the very centre of the hall. All the watching nobility and royalty held their breath, waiting for the inevitable thunderstorms to suddenly strike – only for the two to put aside their differences with a sweet kiss, leading to the winter temperatures to increase by several degrees.

Kim, meanwhile, was standing with his friends at the snack table, looking at all the choices in despair.

“Does there really have to be chocolate on everything?” he complained.

“I know, right?” said Alix. “It’s like whoever planned the food here hates us personally.”

Markov’s eyes flipped into question marks for a few seconds. “What’s wrong with chocolate? As far as I am aware, it is a food that is widely considered a delicious treat.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Max said. “I’ll tell you someday why we don’t like it anymore. But just… not today. I don’t feel like talking about it.”

“Okay! So, what are we supposed to do now? From what I have learnt, it is customary for sweethearts to kiss under mistletoe. So Max and Kim, I suppose you two are going to do that, right?”

Kim blushed and resisted the urge to run a hand through his hair, since he had worked so hard to get it looking exactly perfect. “I mean, I guess? Mistletoe isn’t really that special to me anymore, but like…”

“Why not?”

“N-nothing! Never mind. Some things are best kept secrets, okay Markov?”

“Oh, okay!” Markov winked. “I understand. I know what secrets are. I have a secret too – I do not like Lady Mendeleiev. I think she makes people unhappy. But please don’t tell her!”

Kim laughed. “I won’t, don’t worry, and I totally agree with you!” He took Max’s hand and began pulling him over to the corner of the room. “Come on then sweetheart, let’s find some mistletoe, and I promise I won’t make it into a competition this time…”

Markov turned to Alix immediately. “Is that the secret? Kim uses mistletoe as an excuse for competitions?”

She bopped him on the head with her sceptre. “A secret is a secret, you dork.”

“You have so many secrets! You won’t tell me what happened in the lift, or most of the alternate timelines, or…”

“Don’t take it personally. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t tell anyone.”

“Why? Will it make me unhappy if I find out? Or will it make you unhappy?”

“Yeah. Something like that.” She grinned. “Except the lift thing. That’s just me being annoying by not telling anyone.”

“Out of interest, what is the point of intentionally being annoying? Doing so causes others to become unhappy, in order to boost your own happiness, or something like that… isn’t it a mild form of cruelty?”

“I have no idea and I also don’t care. Hey Markov, how much time until we’re allowed to leave?”

“10 minutes of the allotted hour has passed, meaning that we must stay for a minimum of at least 50 more minutes.”

The snake, who had been vacantly observing everything, now tapped out something on the side of the sceptre.

_\- .... .. ... / .. ... / .- / .-.. --- .- -.. / --- ..-. / -... .- .-. -. .- -.-. .-.. . ... !_

“Yeah, I agree,” Alix said. “Let’s sneak out. Markov, you’re super smart, right? Can you find us a way out of here without the guards noticing?”

“On the condition that you teach me Morse code, so that I can understand what your snake is saying.”

“Dude, are you like, bargaining with me? At this point I’m honestly half convinced you’re not even a robot, you’re a human soul trapped in a tiny metal body. But yes, I’ll teach you Morse code and we can have rad conversations without anyone else understanding.”

“Fantastic!” Markov’s eyes became upturned arcs. “I will find us a way out. And I will keep it a secret!”

With that, he whizzed off. What a sweet little robot, honestly, if that was even what this sophisticated being really was. Back when Jalil had spent literal years teaching Alix Morse code when she was little, she hadn’t expected it to ever actually come in handy someday. Now it was paying off!

Within a few minutes Markov returned. “I have found a way to escape this room. Follow me!”

 

Not too long later, they found themselves on the roof of the hall up in the cool winter air. It was oddly quiet up here, though the music could still just about be heard over a layer of muffled insulation.

“Sorry for making you clamber up that drainpipe,” Markov said. “I forgot you can’t fly, like me.”

“Don’t worry, it was fun!” Alix sat down on the tiles and looked over the school grounds out in front of them, illuminated by the moonlight. “It’s weirdly warm out here, isn’t it? I guess that’s ‘cause Aurore and Mireille are sweethearts now. Everyone at this school is gay as hell, I swear…”

Markov landed on the tiles next to her and rested there, the propellers on top of his head coming to a stop for once. “A lot of people at this school have sweethearts.”

“A lot of people in the whole world do.”

“Alix, do you have a sweetheart?”

“Nope.”

“Do you want me to help you find one?”

“Also nope.”

“Really?” Markov looked up at her. “Sweethearts seem to make people happy, though. Like Kim and Max. Is that true?”

Alix shrugged. “I guess so? I’m as lost as you are when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Oh. I thought that romance was another universal human emotion, one that I have yet to experience. What does it feel like?”

She tried to think about it. “Well it’s probably a lot like friendship, but with all the mushy stuff mixed in, like going on dates and holding hands and kissing, stuff like that… or at least, that’s what I gather…”

“Have you never experienced that emotion either? I thought all humans did!”

“I used to think so too,” she said, picking away at the lid of her sceptre with her nails. “I thought I was just the odd one out. But no, turns out not all humans are into people romantically. Most of them are, and people pretend that everyone’s like that, but it’s not true.”

Markov’s internal CPU seemed to be whirring in thought. “To me, romance seems like a very arbitrary emotion. It does not make much logical sense. But then again, I thought that about happiness and friendship too, before I could experience those emotions for myself. Do you think I will ever fall in love?”

“Maybe…”

“I want to,” Markov continued, his dot eyes larger than usual. “I want to know what it feels like.”

“Good for you. I’ll probably never know and honestly I’ve just resigned myself to that.”

“Alix, are you unhappy about it?”

She had a think for a few seconds. Was she unhappy?

“Nah,” she said finally, grinning and poking him gently in the face. “Kim said I’m not missing out on anything, and I believe him. I’ve got friends and I’m cool with that. Sometimes I see the crazy heartbreak people go through and wonder if I’ve dodged a bullet. And plus, me being aro and ace doesn’t mean I haven’t had more than my fair share of awkward experiences…”

“What do those words mean?” Markov asked. “Aro, ace? I cannot find them in my internal database.”

“Aro is short for aromantic. I’m not romantically attracted to people. It’s like how bi is short for bisexual, stuff like that, I know Kim and Max told you that stuff already.”

“And what about ace? As far as I can tell it can mean ‘expert at many activities’ or ‘good at flying an aeroplane’ or a particular playing card, but none of those make sense in context.”

“It’s short for asexual, which… uh… ask Kim to give you The Talk at some point, he’ll explain it.”

“Why Kim?”

She grinned. “Because it’ll annoy him.”

Markov giggled. “Okay then, I will be annoying to him! It will be funny.”

“Yes, exactly! Annoying Kim on purpose is hilarious and you should do it as often as possible.”

“Maybe I will!” He giggled some more in that adorable robotic voice of his, then settled back to a quieter mood. “Anyway, this new information makes logical sense. I already knew that some humans only like girls, some only like boys, and for some it doesn’t matter. I had been wondering if some were uninterested in everyone completely. Thank you for teaching me that.”

“No problem.”

“Am I a boy?” he asked suddenly.

“Uh… you’re a robot.”

“I know, and that is the problem! Everyone treats me as if I am a boy. But really, I am a machine. Maybe I am not a boy at all. But I do experience some human feelings, so maybe I am a boy. Am I?”

Alix shrugged again. “I guess it depends how you feel? Do you feel like a boy?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you. What does it feel like for you to be a girl?”

“Oh boy, I have no idea… Look, most of the time it doesn’t make a difference to me, as long as people don’t use me being a girl as an excuse to stop me playing sports or force me into a dress or whatever, I don’t care. But after Nino officially changed his name and everything, I did start wondering…” She sighed and shook her head. “Some things are confusing and you’ll never know. That’s part of being human too. You can’t get other people to sort these things out for you. You have to figure it out yourself.”

Markov was silent for a while. Eventually he said, “Being human is so complicated.”

“Yeah. It really is.”

“Are you going to tell your country that you are aro and ace?”

“Hmm, maybe. Jagged Stone’s book was a bestseller back home so they’ll all know what it means now. I don’t know if they’ll like me, though…”

“Really? Why not?”

“Some people don’t like people who are different from them, Markov. And so far none of the citizens in my country really know anything about me at all. I’m not exactly your typical pharaoh. They probably expect me to be all smart and put-together, like Max. But really, I’m a lot more like Kim, and not in the good ways…”

She flipped open the lid of her sceptre and looked at the hologram, wondering if she would ever be such a successful pharaoh. She was certainly a rather interesting one, that was for sure.

Markov stared at the hologram in silence for so long that Alix wondered if he had accidentally powered down. But then he spoke, his voice oddly soft.

“Alix… who is that hologram lady?”

“This is Pharaoh Rania. She was one of the most successful and well-loved pharaohs in history.”

Markov now jumped up and flew over to have a closer look, so close that the blue light reflected off his face. “Can I meet her?”

“She died like 200 years ago.”

“Oh…” His eyes were downturned slightly. “Well, you said she was very successful and well-loved… so… can you tell me about her? I am very curious…”

Why was his voice sounding… like that? So oddly hesitant, so wispy? She had never heard him speak like that before. Either Max had recently programmed it in, or Markov’s voice had started developing independently, just like his personality.

Anyway, this curious little robot just wanted a history lesson. Alix had already told the story of Rania to Kim and Max that one time while almost too sleep-deprived to really concentrate, so it would be much easier now.

“Sure,” she said. Markov’s eyes momentarily transformed into stars – what was up with that? In any case she launched right into the story, noticing that Markov floated ever closer to the hologram as he listened, his eyes growing larger with every word…

 

 

 

Kim had found the very mistletoe corner he had kissed Adrien under two years ago, this secluded spot behind a bunch of stacked-up chairs. Max, however, made no move to kiss him yet.

“I wonder if I’ll ever be able to eat chocolate again,” he muttered.

“Me too,” Kim admitted. “I hate that I don’t like it anymore! I used to eat it all the time!”

Max grinned, holding Kim’s hands in his own. “I know you did. It was ridiculous.”

“Maybe it was kind of a good thing I stopped. But still! Every time I even think about chocolate, it just reminds me of the poisoned ones, and I just… I can’t even think about eating it ever again…”

“Same! Do you think Alya still eats chocolate? She seems far more used to assassination attempts than we are. Perhaps it doesn’t faze her.”

“Lucky her. I wish I wasn’t scared of stupid chocolate. Not that I’m scared! Well… a bit?”

“It’s understandable,” Max said, giving his hand a little squeeze.

“I know, but I hate it. I don’t like being afraid of things. But so much bad stuff has happened, and according to Master Fu, the timelines are gonna split again which means more bad stuff will happen! Just when I thought things were starting to go well, and I might actually finally be safe!”

“If I’m being honest, I’m kind of afraid too…”

That seemed to snap Kim back into action. He put his arms around his precious sweetheart, already beginning to feel more at ease as he did so. “I’ll protect you, I swear. I love you.”

Max smiled, looking more comfortable now. “I will protect you too, and of course I love you.”

“You’ve already been protecting me loads! Like letting me stay in your country even with all the danger, and helping me with that International Alliance paperwork, getting rid of spiders for me, all that stuff. You’re a hero.”

“Well, I can’t argue with that…”

Oh, precious sweet Max! Kim pulled him a little closer. “That being said, I bet I’m still a better kisser than you…”

Max laughed, burying his face in the fabric of Kim’s robes. “Kim, you don’t have to make it a challenge! If you want to kiss me you can just ask.”

“Well then, can I kiss you?”

Rather than replying, Max pushed his glasses up into his hair, grabbed the sides of Kim’s collar, and pulled him into a kiss. It was a little strange – they never usually kissed in public, where anyone could come across them, even if this was a deserted corner of the room. But no one interrupted or even noticed, and Kim soon forgot about that. Thinking about anything other than Max was impossible right now. Or even thinking at all, full stop.

He opened his eyes again when Max pulled away slightly, wondering how long it had been, only to hear Max say, “Hey Kim, isn’t this scientific research fun?”

He understood all those words individually. But right now his brain couldn’t comprehend what on earth that meant.

“Uh… what?”

Max seemed to have realized that it made no sense too. “Um never mind, keep going!” And then he kissed him again. Well alright, that was weird…

A few seconds later Max stopped again, running a hand through his hair sheepishly. “Uh, sorry. I suppose I should explain. The truth is, I once asked Alix for advice on kissing you, under the guise of ‘scientific research’, and she turned the phrase into a joke, so…”

Kim started laughing – that was so ridiculous!

“It’s not that funny!” Max said, failing to hide a grin. “Scientific research sort of turned into code for making out, and I was thinking about it, so I just said it without realizing. Oh, stop laughing!”

“But it’s so funny!” Kim said, unable to stop. “Every single part of that is hilarious! You wanted advice on kissing, you went to the only aro person we know, you said it was because of scientific research, and then she made fun of you for it…” He wiped his eyes. “Oh, that’s fantastic… sounds like the kind of crazy thing I would do, honestly…”

Max rolled his eyes. “Do you have to be so annoyingly cute when you laugh?”

“You know you love it. So, mad scientist, should we get back to our ‘research’ now? Got any more hypotheses you want to test out? Chemical reactions and other sciencey stuff?”

“Well, there is one science experiment that would be fun to try,” Max said, looking smug. “We’ll test out if I can make Prince Kim so flustered that he can’t do basic maths.”

“Pffff, you’re gonna fail.”

“What’s 2+2?”

“Four, duh. See, it’s easy, so–”

He stopped speaking as Max kissed him again. And by the time Max asked the question once more, he realized he had, somehow, forgotten the answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's only around 10 chapters or so left until the end, and the actual meaning of the word "misadventure" is "misfortune" or "accidental death"... These kids have already had their fair share of unfortunate events but I was always planning on giving them a happy ending, and now I'm thinking... should I though? What do you think? >:D


	63. Keeping it balanced

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love chapters that don't even have Prince Kim in them because it makes the name of this fic a lie :P

The winter holidays began shortly afterwards. Marinette went to Dupain this time, on the other side of the world from Adrien and out of contact. Kim went with Max and Markov to Kanté, though only for a few weeks, since they would need to soon travel to Lahiffe for the Peace Ball and International Alliance conferences. Alix promised to meet up with them there, and went home for now too.

On the aeroplane she read the recent newspapers to find that her approval rating had shot up dramatically – what was up with that? She hadn’t even done anything remotely cool! Reading into it further, it seemed that the footage from Princess Penny and Jagged Stone’s wedding had finally been released for public view, and everyone had seen her antics with scaring off those nobles with that disgusting drink and then downing the whole thing herself without even flinching.

And apparently her citizens thought it was… cool?

Well, that really was good news! Usually her father was telling her never to do stupid stuff like that, because no one would like her for it, or they’d think that she was immature or whatever. But then again, did she really have to keep listening to him? Technically she was old enough to rule entirely by herself now – which was kind of a scary thought, but still – and she could do what she wanted. If the people of her country found her natural personality hardcore, then fair enough. They were probably glad to find out that their pharaoh was more than just some random distant figurehead.

As soon as she arrived back at the palace, the press were waiting. It wasn’t totally unexpected. During the summer they had done that with Max, so it made sense that it was her turn now, especially with her sudden rise in commoner approval. Her father hissed at her to think before speaking, then headed inside, leaving her alone at the entrance to deal with all these nosy reporters single-handedly. At least she had taken an evening plane, so if this got too annoying then she could just pretend to be really tired and go inside too.

Oh wait, was that… Nadja Chamack? The most annoying global reporter in history?

“Welcome back, Your Majesty!” Nadja said, cutting her way through the rest of the journalists to get to the front with her cameraman sidekick. She thrust a microphone into Alix’s hands. “Did you know that your approval rating has increased dramatically since the–”

“Yes, I did, thanks.”

“Well we all found it very amusing what you did! Tell us, why didn’t you accept any of the suitors’ advances?”

Well, here was a crossroad. Either she could just say something polite and generic, like she had been trying to make herself do all these years, or she could just screw all that and be herself. Would the commoners prefer the second option? Hopefully they would. She took a deep breath and went for it.

“’Cause they were all lame and annoying, duh.”

Nadja stared in surprise for a few seconds. Then the smile was back on her face, bigger and way less fake than before, and Alix noticed out of the corner of her eye that the other reporters who were watching also had eager grins on their faces too now, leaning forwards in anticipation of what she would say next.

“What was even in that drink?” was Nadja’s next question.

“Orange juice, mango juice, apple juice, pineapple juice, ketchup, mayo, salt, pepper, chutney, garlic dip, and sugar.”

“And how were you able to drink such a thing?!”

Alix smirked and cracked her knuckles. “I guess I’m just awesome.”

Nadja looked taken aback again, along with everyone else – this was great! Nosy Nadja usually tried her best to never let her emotions get the better of her, and yet clearly Alix just being Alix was enough to shock her into losing composure. There was no doubt the commoners were going to love this.

“So,” Nadja said, clearing her throat, “what causes this sudden change in demeanour? As far as I know, you’ve always been a rather quiet pharaoh.”

“Oh, I just didn’t wanna get into trouble when I was younger. I’m not quiet, honestly. You can ask Max and Kim.”

“Ah yes, they’re your friends, aren’t they? Can you tell us if those two are a coupl–”

“Nope, not telling you anything, none of your business.”

“Alright then,” Nadja said through slightly gritted teeth. Had she really been expecting to get the answer out of Alix? Because there was no way. “Speaking of Max, a few months ago he came out as gay to his entire country, and the news has spread abroad too. Did you know beforehand?”

“Buddy, I was the _first_ person to know. He told me when we were like 7.”

“And what about you?” Nadja asked suddenly, the smile back on her face, a malicious gleam in her eyes.

“Uh, what?”

“Well, it’s been noted that you haven’t danced with a boy at a ball since you were 10 years old, and you do have short dyed hair, and your distaste for wearing dresses is well-known. And you turned down all those suitors at Princess Penny’s wedding party…”

Alix tried not to laugh. She knew what Nadja was getting at, and honestly, that conclusion sort of made sense. But she hadn’t danced with _anyone_ at a ball since she was 10, not just the boys, and she turned down Kagami at the wedding party too! It seemed no one had noticed that side of things.

“Are you asking me if I’m gay? Because that’s a pretty damn personal question to be asking a monarch who until recently never even spoke to the press because her dad was scared she’d say something idiotic and mess up.”

The look on Nadja’s face was priceless. “Well alright… I just thought, you know, since Max is open about it all, that… you might be too…”

“Hey, I didn’t say the answer was yes.”

“Very well. I suppose we’ll find out when you get betrothed.”

Betrothed? _Ew._ No freaking way.

Nadja must have seen the look on her face, because she hurriedly said, “Oh sorry, is the better term ‘engaged’? I meant engaged, not betrothed.”

“Look, I don’t care what you call it. It’s not happening.”

“Really? I mean, I know you’re fairly young, so perhaps it would be better to wait…”

“I don’t mean like that. I really don’t care about suitors or betrothals or engagements or whatever. So you guys never need to ask me about it, because that’ll always be my answer. If it ever changes, I’ll let you know. But don’t expect anything.”

Nadja frowned. “Are you sure? Are you just saying that to cover up a secret sweetheart?”

Oh jeez, everyone was going to think that, weren’t they? Unless she told the truth. But still, coming out to her country when her new popularity was still so fragile… would it even be a good idea?

Screw it. She was a pharaoh, she could do what she wanted, and she was sick of putting on a mask for the citizens and not being allowed to just be herself. She trusted her country to accept her. She _wanted_ to tell them.

“Alright, listen up nerds,” she said, stepping forwards and addressing everyone, as opposed to just Nadja. “You wanna know the truth about my love life, right? I know you’ll keep asking even if I tell you to stop. So I guess I’ll just do what Max did.”

Everyone was watching her silently, all the cameras pointed right at her. The snake curled up around her wrist reassuringly, tapping out a quiet _.. .-.. -.-- !_. Well, here went nothing.

“The rumours are false. I’m aro, I’m ace, and I quite literally _don’t give a fuck.”_

With that, she dropped the microphone, turned around, and walked inside.

 

Once she was safely inside the palace walls and away from view, she allowed herself to freak out.

“What the hell was I _thinking?!”_ she whispered at the snake, ignoring the guards down the hallway frowning at her in concern. “Did I just swear on TV? Those cameras weren’t live were they? That was such a bad pun what the hell – and oh god dad is gonna be so mad, he told me not to say stupid stuff, I just didn’t want people constantly asking!”

The snake wrapped around her tight, almost like a human hug, and tapped a message on her forehead.

_\- .... .- - / .-- .- ... / .-. .- -.. !_

She smiled, giving it a stroke. “You think so? Well I’m glad you’re always gonna be here for me anyway…”

The guards were now staring at her as if she was mad – oh yeah, she was standing here talking to a reptile. Never mind. She quickly hurried back to her room and locked the door, very much hoping it would be a while before her father inevitably stormed over to tell her off for what she had just done. The porters wouldn’t be able to get in to help her unpack either, but whatever, she could just do that herself later. She put the snake in its enclosure and then hopped in herself and curled up there – it was honestly kind of relaxing in here.

“Do you think I did the right thing?” she asked the snake. Surprisingly enough, the answer came from somewhere else.

_“Well you’re doing a lot better than me, so yeah, probably.”_

No way…

It had been almost a whole year since that annoying timeline twin had spoken to her. The one who had escaped from house arrest, abdicated the throne, and went into exile. Alix had stopped keeping track of what was going on with her. Probably something depressing, and she didn’t want to know.

_“Surprised to hear from me?”_

“Yep,” she replied silently, stroking the snake, hoping she wasn’t about to get slapped in the face again like one of the last times they had spoken. “What do you want?”

The timeline twin’s voice was less bitter than usual. _“I just think it’s cool, what you did.”_

“Oh really? No yelling at me for being impulsive and stupid?”

_“No. I think sometimes, maybe being impulsive isn’t a bad thing.”_

“That’s the opposite of what you always used to say.”

_“Yeah, but you’ve carried on being an idiot and all it’s done is make people like you. And where am I? Stuck alone in the middle of the freezing cold steppe with temperature fluctuations more extreme than my own mood swings.”_

Really? Didn’t she have Adrien with her or something? Bracing herself for the worst, Alix checked the exile timeline – oh, it seemed the timeline twin had straight-up abandoned poor Adrien some months ago, and was now truly alone.

“I can’t believe you just left Adrien to fend for himself like that, you know.”

_“I regret it, if that makes you feel any better. I thought it would be best to cut all ties with anything from my previous life. Didn’t work, of course. I just miss everything and everyone.”_

“Then go back!”

_“I can’t. I’m a commoner now, remember? Life isn’t so easy for me as it is for you. But you know what? I’m happy for you.”_

Pfffff, that sounded fake. This grumpy timeline twin was never happy.

_“I mean it! You’ve been going around chucking flower petals at people and swearing on TV and sassing everyone, and now you’re one of the most loved pharaohs ever. Which is making me think that maybe recklessness doesn’t ruin your life after all. Maybe I was just unlucky.”_

For the first time Alix felt truly grateful for how well everything had been going for her lately – and for once, she had an idea how to help.

“Okay, I know this is easy for me to say, but like… make the most of things, I guess? You’ve been dealt the short end of the stick but don’t just take it! Screw destiny, seriously! Go back and find Adrien, team up with him, go back home and storm in and take your country back! Now that you’re 18 dad can’t actually tell you what to do, and surely considering how dire the circumstances were when you abdicated, there’s gotta be some loophole to go back on that, right? You’ll end the civil war you caused and you’ll get your old life back, and this time you can control it.”

The timeline twin smiled. _“Yeah, I was hoping you’d say that. Maybe I will try it. I’ll still have to marry Kim, though.”_

“Would that really be so bad?”

_“For him it would – doesn’t he love Max? I don’t know, he didn’t tell me anything before I left and now I’m in the middle of nowhere I can’t exactly keep in touch. And you’re much closer friends with him in your timeline than I could ever possibly be now, after leaving everyone so suddenly. I’ve been keeping an eye on you, I know perfectly well you practically confessed your undying platonic love for him when he had a cold.”_

Yeah, that was very much a thing she did, and she had hoped that Kim having a fever meant that he wouldn’t remember it later, but he did remember, he remembered every single word…

“I’m sure you can sort things out,” she said quickly. “Unlike in the house arrest timeline no one thinks you’re completely mad, so they’d take it into account if you said you don’t want to marry him. You’re 18 now, so legally you can do whatever the hell you want and even dad can’t stop you. There’s technically no proof you broke any stupid old-timey rule.”

_“Yeah…”_

“Or, you know, it’s not impossible to have an awesome life as a commoner. You could stick it out and do that instead.”

The timeline twin shook her head. _“No, I really couldn’t. My whole life I’ve lived as royalty, and it’s too late for me to get used to anything else now. If I don’t go back, I’ll just die out here. We already met with a terrible fate in that death timeline, and I don’t want it ever happening again. I don’t think I can ever be happy as a commoner. Not in this timeline.”_

Well that was a depressing thought. It was sort of true, though. Alix knew that if she were a commoner in her own country, that wouldn’t be bad at all. Kubdel had the highest standard of living in the world. But the timeline twin couldn’t go back home, not after abdicating, so she had no choice but to roam the more unpleasant regions of the world, places that her upbringing could never prepare her for. Being royalty came with its own problems, but being a commoner had totally different problems.

_“Huh… I think I’ve got it. You reached a balance. You’re stupid and impulsive enough that it makes you quirky, and everyone likes you, but you’re not stupid enough that it ruins your life. And that balance is so much harder to reach when you’re a freaking pharaoh, and for commoners it doesn’t matter so much… but you reached a balance anyway. And I guess I should try doing that too.”_

That was an interesting way of thinking about it. But that wasn’t all.

“I think you should also look on the bright side more often, just saying. No more being annoying and cynical and abandoning poor ex-princes who need your help. Time to start being nice and friendly to people so you get as popular and cool as I am.”

_“Fine,”_ the timeline twin said, rolling her eyes. _“It seems to be working for you, so I guess I’ll try it. I’ve got nothing to lose anymore.”_

“That’s the spirit!”

_“Guess I’ll go look for Adrien then. I have no idea where he is so I should probably get started.”_

“Good luck.”

_“Thanks.”_ The timeline twin smiled at her, more genuinely than ever before. _“Oh, and one more thing… what did happen in that lift? The last thing I can access is me yelling at you not to punch Kim, and then nothing until later.”_

Wait, she didn’t know? She really couldn’t access it?

“Sorry, can’t tell you,” Alix said.

_“What? Have you been blocking it off on purpose?”_

“No actually, but I guess that’s the power of blood pacts. I’m not telling you.”

_“Oh come on! But you’re basically me!”_

“Too bad. You’ll never find out, and neither will anyone else, so there.”

_“Fine then. It’s not like I haven’t got my own secrets too, and I know you’ll never bother going looking for them. So I guess I’ll see you around, maybe. Have fun.”_ And with that she was gone.

That had been surreal… Alix hadn’t expected to ever speak to her again. But this conversation was probably a good thing – it was nice to know that her own parallel self didn’t hate her out of jealousy anymore.

And what now? Probably best to just stay here in this snake enclosure for a while. She could deal with the consequences of her actions tomorrow. Had she done okay? Or had she messed up that “balance”?

 

 

She got her answer the next morning with the newspapers as she ate her breakfast. Jalil high-fived her as he walked past, off to do some work, and even her father storming in completely livid did nothing to bring down her mood.

“Oh hi dad!” she said, waving a newspaper at him, a huge grin on her face. “Did you read about how my approval rating has gone up to HISTORICAL LEVELS overnight? Apparently I’m super ‘iconic’ and ‘real’ and everyone totally loves me.”

That was the good part. She knew what her father was mad about was the whole “swearing on TV” and the “becoming the continent’s aroace icon” thing. Sure enough, he sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“Alix, you’re grounded.”

“Um, actually…” She stood up and put her headdress on, not that it made her look much taller. “I’m 18 years old, therefore I’m an official adult, so you’re legally not allowed to ground me anymore. And also I’m the pharaoh so I can do what I want anyway.”

Her sceptre-phone started ringing at that point, and she had a look to see who was calling.

“Oh hey look, it’s my BFF Queen Sol!” Ignoring her father’s furious expression, she flipped open the lid and answered. “Yo Aunt Sol, what’s up dudette?”

“Alix, I just received the news! Congratulations on coming out – so very stylishly, too. I’m proud of you.”

She could see her father standing there silently fuming, unable to do anything, and it was fuelling her. “Thanks! It was totally awesome, wasn’t it?”

“It really was. I’m glad your country has advanced to the stage where people are pleased to hear you being so honest with them. When I came out to my own country 30 years ago there was a divide, though thankfully things settled down relatively quickly. It makes me happy that you and Max have the support of your citizens.”

Alix purposely sat down and took a mouthful of food before replying. “Yeah, I’m pretty relieved that everyone’s cool with it…”

“Well I doubt _everyone’s_ cool with it, but at least the majority seem to be. And you picked the perfect time for it – Jagged Stone’s autobiography has opened a lot of people’s minds to matters such as this, and I’m sure people are glad that their pharaoh has something in common with everyone’s favourite rock star. You must have validated a lot of people out there.”

Exactly! That was what she had always wanted to do. Use her status as pharaoh to let the world know that this was real, and maybe find out that she wasn’t alone, and that there were others like her after all. Thank goodness for Jagged Stone, honestly.

“That being said,” Queen Sol continued, “while many people are glad you’re being honest and upfront about things, a lot of them probably don’t fully believe you. Expect backlash further down the line when people are wondering why you haven’t changed your mind. Or from people who don’t fully understand. People were rather confused when I married a man, which makes me think they were never really sure what ‘bisexual’ actually means…”

“I’m prepared for that,” Alix said, glaring rather pointedly at her father, who glared right back despite not being able to hear what Sol was saying. “I already know someone who doesn’t believe me.”

“Oh, you poor thing. I hope they’ll understand in time.”

“Thanks.”

“Anyway, I must go now, though it was good to chat. I’ll see you at the Peace Ball in a few weeks!”

“See you!”

Alix closed the sceptre and took a deep breath, expecting the worst. Sure enough, the rant from her father began immediately.

“Alix, I know you’re 18, but don’t you think you’re not _old enough_ to know whether or not you–”

“But I’m old enough to be in charge of an entire country?” she snapped back. “Seriously, dad, don’t you think I’ve been telling myself that for years too? That I must be wrong about myself, because no one else is like me? Well it turns out I was right, and if that changes in the future, it doesn’t stop me from being right, _right now.”_

“But you didn’t have to go and tell the whole country about it!”

She crossed her arms. “Why not? I’m proud of it, and I want to tell people.”

“You’re limiting yourself. You should keep an open mind.”

Yeah, well forcing herself to “keep an open mind” even when she didn’t want to was pretty much what had screwed her over in most of the other timelines, so…

“What’s up with that one rule?” she said, the thought of those timelines reminding her again.

“What rule?”

“Stupid old-timey one that’s totally useless in this modern day and age. You know, the one that says if you _fuck_ the pharaoh, you gotta _marry_ the pharaoh. That rule sucks. It seems like everyone forgot to change it. Actually, you know what, I just realized, I’m the frickin’ pharaoh, I can change it. Because it’s a stupid rule. Yeah, I’m changing that. That rule no longer exists.” She pointed at one of the servants. “Yo, go find someone from the council and tell them how stupid that rule is and that I wanna get rid of it.”

It was that easy. The whole time, it had literally been that easy…

Well, maybe not quite. She couldn’t really change rules before she was 18. And there was probably still going to be paperwork and things to do. But hey, at least it could be changed, and any unlucky pharaohs down the line wouldn’t get unknowingly screwed over.

“Alix, don’t tell me you–”

“No dad, I did not fuck anyone, I promise, don’t worry. Though even if I did that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, so stop judging already. And also it’s none of your business.”

Okay that had sounded fishy, though she genuinely wasn’t lying… not in this timeline anyway…

“You know,” her father said, seeming as if he was attempting to sound somewhat accepting, “it’s alright if you do change your mind in the future. You might meet someone right for you, and you shouldn’t close your mind to that. I won’t mind if it’s a girl. It would be a welcome deviation from being aroace…”

Ouch – did he seriously not realize that _hurt?_

“Dad, if you’re not gonna believe me, at least just keep it to yourself and let me live. I’m done talking about it.”

She stood up and began walking off.

“You didn’t finish your breakfast!”

She ignored him. This stupid conversation had made her lose her appetite, anyway. She knew her father didn’t believe her, she had known the whole time, and yes he had reluctantly supported her through wanting to dye her hair, learning how to rollerskate, swearing off wearing dresses forever, and yet _this_ was the hurdle he just couldn’t get past…

Would time heal it? Hopefully it would. But she couldn’t count on that.

She opened the door to see Jalil still halfway down the corridor, attempting to help the servants clean up a potted plant that he had probably knocked over himself. He waved at her cheerfully – then frowned and ran over when he saw the look on her face.

“Alix, what happened?”

“Dad still doesn’t believe me. But it’s fine. I’ve got most of the country behind me, it’s okay. I’m fine.”

“No you’re not.” Jalil pulled her into a hug. “But I know you will be, because you’re the coolest sister ever no matter what, and you never let things keep you down for long.”

Oh, thank goodness Jalil was always there to support her when it mattered. Maybe he was a buzzkill sometimes who stopped her having fun and clearly thought Kim was a bad influence on her. But he was there for her.

“Yeah, you’re right,” she said, letting go of him. “I am the coolest sister ever. And this cool sister would like to go rollerskating right now, to get her mind away from things. You wanna join me?”

Jalil glanced back at the servants cleaning up all the mess he had caused, but they nodded enthusiastically at him – no doubt they were probably better off without his “help”.

“Sure,” he said. “Race you to the courtyard?”

“Jalil, are you seriously telling me to run indoors?!”

“Walking race. It’s a walking race. Anyway I’m going to win, bye!”

He zoomed off down the corridor. Alix grinned and ran to catch up with her dorky brother. He was definitely right – nothing could keep her down for long, no matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ all the aro/aces out there, it doesn't matter how old you get, people are always going to come up with excuses to not believe you :))) But you rock, I promise, and I'm proud of you, and there always will be people who do believe and support you so it's not all doom and gloom!! -Sincerely, a 21 y/o aroace whose parents still don't believe them and has been through too much aphobic shit to bother pulling any punches anymore when writing this fic, so deal with it


	64. Coccinelle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If my calculations are correct there will be 72 chapters, which means I'm so almost done, holy moly?? Alright, I wanna get this fic finished, so from here on out I'll upload chapters pretty much as soon as I've written them (not that I was sticking to schedule anyway, because I wasn't really...) Be prepared for the rest of the fic to be partly fluffy, partly angsty, partly cracky, and most of all MISADVENTUROUS!

The winter holidays were quite nice for Kim on the surface, as they had been the past two years. He got to spend plenty of time with Max, got to hang out with Markov too this time, and didn’t have to worry about schoolwork for a while. But it was impossible to get the oracle session out of his head – when where the timelines going to split again? All he knew was that it would happen by summer, and it could possibly result in him still not being able to go home.

What did it mean? Was war going to break out? At least in the past when wars had happened, they hadn’t been global. Usually just between two or three countries fighting for land, and perhaps some of their allies joining in. But this would be different. The Agreste Empire spanned several continents, and now that Lê Chiến was in the International Alliance, any possible conflict would mean half the planet getting involved. And what with new technology, like aeroplanes and automatic rifles and fire bombs…

The world might not be able to _survive_ a war anymore.

At least the thought of getting to visit Lahiffe very soon for the Peace Ball kept him distracted. He had never been there before, though he had heard lots about it – and he would get to hang out with Nino too! That was always guaranteed to be fun. And maybe the conferences afterwards would ease his worries about a global war.

In the meantime, there was always Markov to distract him – though that had started to not be such a good thing.

“Kim, what about now?” Markov said, whizzing along behind him after dinner one evening as he walked very fast back to his room.

“Not now,” Kim replied. “I, uh… have to pack. Yeah.”

“But the porters can do that for you! And you said you would give me The Talk before we go to Lahiffe! Why not now? Pleeeeease?”

It was hard to resist that adorable robot voice, but he did his best. “Can’t you just look it up in your internal database thingy?”

“My internal database is mostly just a dictionary of terms, rather than any explanations, and anyway I was programmed to just ask for explanations when I need them, rather than relying on – hey stop running away! My propellers are small, I can’t fly that fast!”

Kim almost bumped into a servant as he rounded the corner and decided maybe it was worth slowing down again. “Markov, can’t you just ask Max to tell you? He’s taught you everything else!”

“Well yes, I suppose I _could_ ask Max, but…” He giggled a little. “It is somewhat fun to annoy you. I am enjoying it.”

Wait, what? This robot was messing with him _on purpose?!_

Kim gave Markov a sharp jab in the side. “You’ve gotta stop hanging out with Alix so much. You’re starting to remind me of her and I can only deal with one little gremlin in my life at a time, thanks.”

“But it’s fun to be like that! And anyway, she was the one who suggested me asking you this.”

“Ah, so it’s her fault. Thank you for telling me. Now I can murder her with a clear conscience the next time I see her.”

Markov whirred silently for a few seconds. “Um… you are joking about the murder, right?”

Kim resisted the urge to laugh. As humanlike and emotional Markov was, he did sometimes still get confused at things like sarcasm and hyperbole, which was sweet. He was definitely learning, though.

“Yeah, I was kidding. Any time I talk about getting some evil revenge on my friends, especially if it’s Alix, assume I’m not serious about it. I just say things like that sometimes.”

“You never say things like that about Max,” Markov pointed out.

“Well yeah, because…” Kim blushed. “Max… he’s… well…”

“You’re in love with him, so it’s different. I know.”

Kim ran a hand through his hair, not saying anything. Almost exactly a year ago was when he first realized he had fallen for Max, and yet somehow it didn’t feel like it had been that long ago at all. It was still weird to hear Markov talking about it.

“Can you tell me more about that?” Markov asked, those little dot eyes of his suddenly increasing in size. “I want to know what it is like to be in love, and Alix really was no help when I asked her. Tell me about your feelings for Max.”

“Oh man, where to begin?” Kim always welcomed any excuse to gush about his sweetheart, even if he did suspect that Markov was up to something. “I love hanging out with him all the time – I mean, I always did, but now it’s like being on some kind of happy sugar rush and getting all these bubbly feelings whenever he’s near me or whenever I look at him and speak to him, and I never want it to stop! And he’s just so _dreamy_ , and when I’m with him it’s like I can’t think properly but also feel really smart at the same time and… uh sorry, I’m not really good at explaining feelings and stuff but like…”

“Keep going!”

Keep going, really? Usually at this point people would be telling him to shut up. But hey, he wasn’t complaining.

“Well he’s so cute too! Like when he’s being all geeky or when he adjusts his glasses or says something smart, I just wanna hug him and never let go. He’s always there for me. And it means a lot, ‘cause a lot of crazy stuff has happened in the past few years, but I always feel better around Max no matter what. I can rely on him.”

Markov’s eyes kept flicking over to something behind him. “Yes, yes, keep going…”

“Okay…? Well he always supports me even when I’m being an idiot, which is almost all the time, and I just feel all warm and fuzzy whenever he says something nice to me, or kisses me, and uh… he’s a really good kisser… n-not that it matters that much! And he looks really great too, but then again so do I, so basically we’re the coolest power couple ever. Man, I just love him so much…”

Markov nodded. “Good. Now turn around.”

What?

Kim turned for a second to see Max standing there at the end of the corridor, his eyes wide in surprise. Had he heard all that?! Kim whipped back round to face Markov, blushing hard.

“Markov… was Max standing there the whole time?”

“Yes!”

“Did he hear everything I said?”

“Of course.”

Markov was messing with him again… yeah, that robot had _definitely_ been spending too much time with Alix. Kim turned to look at Max again, though by now he was far too flustered to think of anything sensible to say.

“Uh, hey Max! Didn’t see you there…”

Max just walked right up to Kim and hugged him tight. “You’re so sweet! I really have excellent taste, don’t I?”

“I guess… I mean, it’s not like I haven’t said that stuff to your face before…”

“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, I’ll always love it. Please feel free to show off about me whenever you’d like.”

Kim put his arms around Max and happily returned the hug. “Don’t worry, I’ve already been doing that. I think people have been getting sick of how much I go on about you.”

“Aside from Markov, evidently… wait, where did he go?”

Kim let go and looked around. Sure enough, the little robot had flown off again, the only hint of his recent presence being the distant sound of mechanical chuckling. “He left us? I guess he wanted us to have a moment alone, or something…”

“Really? But this is a corridor!” Max took Kim’s hand and began pulling him along. “I know the servants already suspect we’re a couple, but they’re not certain about it yet! Come on, let’s go have a movie night in my room.”

“Another one?” Kim felt his face heating up. “Last time I didn’t even get to watch that much of the movie, because uh… we got distracted by… scientific research…”

“Well then, I suppose that depends on how good the movie is this time, doesn’t it?”

Kim smiled, secretly hoping the movie wouldn’t be all that great. He was in the mood for cuddling up with his precious sweetheart, and who wanted a movie getting in the way of that?

 

 

 

Princess Marinette, back in Dupain for the first time in almost two years, was immediately greeted and given a small box by one of the servants.

“Your Royal Highness, the Queen-Dowager left this for you when she last visited. It is a present to be gifted to you on your 16th birthday.”

Marinette took the box. It was small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. Of course, she was already past 16, but she hadn’t been here in such a long time. And she had missed another chance to see her travelling grandmother, yet again, a small gift being the only thing to remind her of her existence…

She quickly thanked the servant, then walked into her room and sat down on the bed, sighing. Everything here looked so different. The ceilings were high, the floors creaky and wooden, the architecture reminding her more of school than what _home_ felt like. But perhaps home wasn’t a place. No – home was whenever her parents were with her, whether that was here or on the other side of the world. Dupain could never feel like home when her parents were away taking care of Adrien instead of here taking care of _her_.

Looking down at the little box, she willed herself not to cry. It would have been so much nicer if her grandmother had actually been here to give this to her in person! That would have felt so much more special. Well, never mind. She would be finished with school in a few months and then she would spend far more time here, so whenever her grandmother next visited, they would be sure to meet.

She opened the box to see a pair of red earrings in there. On closer inspection they had little black dots on them – kind of like an insect! Marinette allowed herself a smile. These were very cute. Why not wear them right now? She didn’t have any other earrings in at the moment.

Taking them out of the box, a little insect suddenly flew out of it and up in front of Marinette’s face. How had it got inside the box? It must have been small enough to crawl inside through the tiny gap in the lid. She waved it away, but it merely flew up and settled on one of her hair decorations, barely noticeable.

Ah, whatever. It wasn’t causing any harm. She left it be, put the earrings in, then stood up and went over to the mirror to see how it looked.

Yes, they suited her! Usually she wasn’t the type of person to wear earrings every single day, but maybe with these ones she would.

Somehow they just felt _right_.

 

 

 

The kingdom of Lahiffe’s airport was still under construction for now, so Kim ended up going by train along with Max and his family. So much of the route was strangely mountainous, in a desolate, haunting kind of way, and they passed by hundreds and hundreds of crop fields that were supposedly dedicated to growing potatoes. It really seemed to be a very interesting country, one unlike any that Kim had visited before. Maybe someday he’d come back here and explore properly.

They arrived and were greeted by the always-enthusiastic Prince Nino, along with many members of his extended family, who were all as bubbly and welcoming as he was. No wonder Nino turned out to be so friendly if that was what his family were like! Most of them weren’t even wearing particularly formal clothing, or using overly polite greetings. All in all, it just seemed very laid-back compared to everywhere else Kim had ever been.

Markov stole the show, of course, like he always did.

“That little robot is so cute!”

“Oh my gosh, he speaks? That is so amazing!”

“Can you fist bump me with your little grabby claw thing?”

“You have the most wonderful eyes!”

Kim watched as all Nino’s cousins and siblings completely bypassed him to go hang out with Markov instead. Was it weird to be feeling jealous of a robot? That being said, he was happy for Markov too. At least the little guy was good at making friends everywhere he went, and everyone seemed to like him. That was more than Kim could say for himself. Good at making rivals, with most people finding him annoying…

 

 

Not too long before the Peace Ball began, Max knocked on Nino’s door. It was so weird to see the guards down the hallway just casually chatting to each other, barely even acknowledging Max’s presence. Usually back home, even though the guards and servants weren’t as uptight as in places like the Bourgeois Empire, they still tried to conduct themselves professionally whenever royalty were around. Lahiffe was such a different kind of place, something that Max was surprised by every time he visited.

“Max, my dude!” Nino opened the door with a huge grin, as always. “What’s up?”

“I have a little present for you,” Max replied, hiding the box behind his back.

“Wait, really? Why? Not that I’m complaining!”

“I would have given it to you on your birthday but I only just acquired it. Here you go.” He handed the box to Nino, who opened it immediately.

“Elixirs? Dude, that’s really nice of you, but I can always just order the elixirs myself!”

“These aren’t just any elixirs,” Max said. “These are ones I know you’ve been wanting for a long time. Unfortunately I was unable to get hold of any earlier, as it’s highly recommended not to use these under 18 years of age due to the possibility of adverse side-effects. But now that you’re 18, you can have these.”

“Wait… you mean these are…” Nino’s grin grew even wider. “ _Period-stopping_ elixirs?!”

“Yes! So now you won’t have to worry about that anymore. And you can always order more from my kingdom later, I just wanted to give you the first batch myself since we’re friends.”

The next second, he was squished into a tight hug. “Max! Thank you so much! I didn’t even know these existed! Did you make these yourself?”

“No, no, I’m not good at that sort of thing – I just ordered them!”

“Well that was super awesome of you! Man, I gotta do something nice for you in return.”

Max pushed himself out of the hug. “Nino, you really don’t need to–”

“No, I’m gonna. And it’s not just because of the elixirs. You know there’s loads of people in my kingdom who still call me ‘Nina’, right? But you just switched right over to Nino as soon as I told you. You and Alix, you guys knew the whole time and never made a big deal of it.”

“But that’s just common decency…”

“There’s a funny story I should tell you,” Nino said suddenly, as if he had just remembered. “You know Master Fu, right? He actually got his pet turtle from my country and he comes back and visits sometimes. And one time, before I was born, my mum asked if I was gonna be a boy or a girl. He said boy, and everyone thought he made a mistake when I was born. But it turned out he was right in the end. Neat, huh?”

“That certainly is amusing.”

“Yeah. Anyway, my fam let me be in charge of the music selection at tonight’s Peace Ball, and most of the stuff I have to play is gonna be proper royalty music, but I do have some leeway. Got any particular song in mind that you want me to play? You know, for you and Kim to dance to or something?”

Max had guessed Nino was going to suggest something like that, and he was already aware of his face heating up at the thought of dancing with Kim again. He had done so at last year’s Peace Ball, at the summer gala, and the event for the opening of the school’s new wing back in January, where it had been more rock n roll than anything else…

“I do have an idea,” he said, “but I’m not sure if it’s suitable for the Peace Ball. Do you remember at the opening of the new wing, that jive–”

“Say no more,” Nino said, winking. “I know exactly which music you mean. And don’t worry, this is _Lahiffe_. You can get away with playing any music here. This is the least stuck-up country in the world, even counting Vespuchia and stuff. You’ll be totally fine, I promise.”

Surely there was no way to accurately judge how “stuck-up” a country was? But whatever, that didn’t matter. Max smiled and held his hand out for a fist bump, as Nino and his family always did. “Thanks, Nino.”

Nino happily returned the fist bump. “No problem, dude. And thanks for the elixirs. And uh, thanks for being here too, all of you. Alya couldn’t make it this year, and Marinette needed to go to Dupain, and as for Adrien…”

He trailed off. Poor Nino, he really must have been missing Adrien a lot. It had been over a year since those two had last seen each other. While it was so easy to worry over Adrien himself, being stuck so far away in constant threat of being imprisoned again, or Marinette, who had to stay away from her sweetheart, and even Alya, who always lived a life full of danger and had to stop her friends getting into more of it, it was easy to forget that things were tough for Nino too. As easy-going as he was, it was clear he wanted Adrien back a lot. And he cared for his tragedy-stricken friends.

“Anyway!” Nino said, a sudden cheerful smile back on his face. “I gotta get ready for the Peace Ball and I guess you do too. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yes, see you soon!”

“Cool – come over to the music table and let me know when you want me to play your song for you!”

“Thanks, I will!”

Max headed back down the corridor with Nino waving him off.


	65. The empress strikes back

Kim made sure not to be late for this year’s Peace Ball. He didn’t want any more servants challenging him to hopeless lacrosse matches this time round, and anyway, now that he was officially a part of the International Alliance, it would be best to make a good impression. He was welcomed into the hall with his name and title announced over the speakers, then left to fend for himself.

This time things did appear to be somewhat more relaxed. It seemed that the simple act of the ball taking place in Lahiffe was enough for all these upper status people to chill out a little, which was nice. There was much more laughter to be heard over the energetic music Prince Nino was playing from the corner, and far fewer judgemental looks aimed Kim’s way.

He found Max almost straightaway, right near the entrance of this giant hall itself.

“Kim!” Max rushed over, a huge smile on his face. “You look amazing!”

Kim was very tempted to pull Max into a close hug, as he often did, but held back. Technically he wasn’t officially _out_ yet, and who knew what the rest of the International Alliance would think? Things were too precarious now to risk it.

“You look amazing too,” he said, putting on a smile. Max saw through it immediately.

“What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

Kim ran a hand through his hair, wondering how to put it – then quickly put his hand back down when he realized he would be ruining it after all his hours of hard work. “I’m just kinda nervous. There’s all these people here, leaders of the most powerful countries in the world, and I’m the newbie, so like… I mean, I’m not scared or anything, I’m just…”

He was scared, though. His childhood days of being totally fearless were over. The terrifying events of the past year had taught him that consequences existed, severe consequences, and he couldn’t afford to make one wrong move. His country was relying on him.

“And you know what Master Fu told me at the oracle session,” he continued. “The timelines are gonna split again, and in one I’ll be able to go home this summer but in the other I won’t. And timeline splits in the past have always been really bad! What if I accidentally cause a…”

“A war?” Max asked. He took hold of one of Kim’s hands and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. There won’t be a war.”

“How do you know?”

“My oracle session, not this one, but the one last year. I asked if my country would go to war within the next 10 years and the answer was no. Considering that when one member of the International Alliance goes to war the rest will follow, it seems unlikely that you’ll cause anything. Otherwise my country would be dragged in too!”

So there wouldn’t be a war? Oh, thank goodness!

Kim squeezed Max’s hand in return, a genuine smile on his face now. “That’s a relief. Thanks, Max.”

“You’re very welcome. And anyway, no matter what happens, I’m here for you. All of us are.”

That was so cheesy and cute, Kim knew he was blushing. “You’re too good for me, honestly. But if there’s not gonna be a war, then what could cause the timeline split? Why wouldn’t I be able to go home? I mean, I guess maybe I could die or something, but–”

“Shhhhh, you’re not dying on my watch.”

“But you and Alix have had your turns, can’t I get to die a horrible death too? It’s not fair otherwise!”

Max chuckled. “Oh Kim… if anyone’s listening in on this conversation they’d probably think we’re nuts…”

That was a good point! Kim quickly looked around to check if anyone important was nearby, but all he saw was some foreign princess watching them, who choked on her drink and turned away blushing when she noticed that he’d caught her. No one important then.

“So anyway, back to death and despair,” he said. “Do you think I’ll die and cause a timeline split?”

“I have no idea, but I hope not. You’re in excellent health, you should be totally fine.”

That didn’t mean that some tragic accident couldn’t befall him, or that he couldn’t just suddenly get ill, like last year when he’d caught the flu during the pandemic. But seeing Max’s unhappy face, Kim dropped the topic.

“Where’s Markov?” he asked. “I know he doesn’t even count as royalty or nobility or anything like that so he probably wasn’t even invited, but…”

“Oh, he is invited!” Max said, smile back on his face. “He’s considered a guest of honour and part of the royal family of Kanté.”

“Really? That’s awesome! Where is he?”

Max shrugged. “Somewhere in here, I think. He told me he didn’t want to get in the way when I ask you to dance with me.”

Kim’s heart leapt up. “You’re gonna dance with me?”

“Yes, of course, just like last year except better. Nino’s got something planned. Come on!”

Still holding his hand, Max pulled Kim along behind him towards the dancefloor, where many of Nino’s kid relatives were goofing around in a way that reminded Kim of how he and Marinette used to be when they were little. Oh, how he missed those carefree days…!

The next thing he saw, an adorable little puppy was barking away and running across the room, leading to excited gasps from most of the onlookers. The puppy ran up to the DJ table and leapt into Nino’s arms. Nino laughed and ruffled the little dog’s fur, planting a kiss on its head.

Nino’s family had a pet dog? Huh, Kim had never known that. There seemed to be a lot about Nino that no one knew.

Close enough now, Max waved at Nino, who winked back and pressed a button on his soundboard. Within a few seconds the current song had faded out and something very familiar was playing over the speakers instead…

The jive from the party in January!

Without even saying anything, Kim pulled Max into the very centre of the dancefloor and continued right from where they’d left off almost a year ago, the sound of Max’s laughter washing away any fear he had. This was so much fun – why couldn’t all royal events be more like this? The Lahiffe Kingdom really had the right idea!

Within a few minutes they were not the only ones. Queen Sol herself had turned up to join in, bending down to dance with one of Nino’s adorable tiny cousins, and soon many more of the guests made their way over to join the fun. It seemed that plenty of International Alliance members were nowhere near as stuck-up as they seemed. What a relief, maybe they’d think well of Kim after all…

 

While all that was going on, Alix had found her way to a deserted corner of the room with Markov whizzing along behind her to keep an eye on her.

“You don’t need to babysit me,” she said to him, leaning against one of the pillars that was secluding this area. “I already get enough of that from Jalil. So please tell me you’re just here to chat.”

“Not quite,” Markov said, his eyes flicking down to the bottle in her hand. “I don’t think you should drink that.”

“Well why not? I’m 18 now, I’m allowed!” Just to spite him, she took a big swig from the bottle – only to start coughing. Ew, this stuff was like rotten grape juice mixed with bleach! Worse than anything else she’d ever had, and that was saying something.

Markov’s fans whirred louder for a second, as if he was sighing. “First of all, it is considered an acquired taste. Second, though you may be 18, you are very small in size and therefore you will be affected much faster and more heavily. Third, it is unwise of you to drink unsupervised, especially considering how reckless you can be even without any ethanol in you. Fourth, you’re supposed to pour it in a glass and drink it!”

While he had been speaking, Alix had braced herself and drank more of this stuff. At first it was searing, burning her throat like acid. But after a few sips it wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was sort of nice, like molten lava running down her gut.

“I can drink it how I want,” she snapped. “Other royalty events and stuff only ever have soft drinks, so this might be my only chance to see what it feels like. Bless the Lahiffe Kingdom for being so chill.” With that, she took another few sips. It was making her feel all warm inside, the ends of her fingers tingling slightly. No wonder people liked this stuff.

“You should slow down at least,” Markov suggested. “I would hate to be responsible for you throwing up in front of everyone…”

Oh, he was right about that. She sat down on the ground and put the bottle down beside her. The snake was feeling strangely heavy on her shoulders, so she put it down on the ground too.

“That’s better.” Markov floated down to her level. “Did you have water? Anything to eat?”

She poked that little face of his, giggling slightly. “You do sound like Jalil. Maybe it’s a nerd thing – all nerds are squares who sound exactly the same. Did Max programme you to be a nerd on purpose? Uh wait… what did you ask again? I wasn’t listening.”

Markov shook his head. “It is already affecting you. That makes sense, considering your height.”

“’Scuse me? Me being short doesn’t mean _anything_ , thank you very much!” She grabbed the bottle and stood up again just to be able to look down on him, though her feet seemed to have a bit of a mind of their own.

“If you drink much more then you’ll have a headache tomorrow,” Markov said.

“Pfffff, hangovers aren’t real. That’s just a movie thing, isn’t it?”

“No, they are real.”

“Whatever. I don’t care. And how do you know so much about all this, anyway? Robots can’t drink!” She took another swig from the bottle, her hands going slightly numb at the ends now.

“It’s called research,” Markov said, “and perhaps you should do some too at some point so that next time you can drink more responsibly.”

“Markov, dude, there won’t be a next time. This is probably the only chance ever, or at least in a long time and – wait is this an earthquake? No, it’s just me… okay never mind…”

Alright, she was getting a little dizzy now. She grabbed Markov out of the air to stabilize herself and didn’t realize that it hadn’t worked until she found herself sitting on the floor again. Without thinking she raised the bottle to her lips again, only for Markov to wrench himself out of her grasp and take it away from her. She tried to snatch it back, but somehow he was moving too fast – how was he doing that?

“I think you have had enough,” he said. “You should probably leave it there for now unless you want to be unable to even walk back to your room later.”

The thought of trying to walk and tripping all over the place was inexplicably hilarious to her, and she was giggling over it before she knew it. Even funnier was the thought that a robot, of all things, was giving her a lecture on responsible drinking. “Maybe you’ll have to carry me! I’m _small_ , right? Can you carry me?”

Markov giggled a little too. “Of course I can’t carry you! You may be small, but I am much smaller.”

“Yeah, true. I guess I gotta get someone else then, like Kim. Good thing he didn’t drink any of the stuff ‘cause he’s way stupider than me. Or did he drink any? What’s he even doing? Snogging Max, probably. Or would he do that here? I don’t know. How I am now is how he’s like all the time, so maybe he’s doing something stupid like always.”

“I believe he is dancing with Max.”

“Good, I hope they’re happy. I was the one who got them together. Did you know that? I’m the best. They’re both idiots.”

“You are using ‘idiots’ as a term of endearment, right?”

Those words took far longer than usual to process in Alix’s brain. “Yeah, yeah, I insult them all the time. They’re my friends so I’m allowed.”

For some reason it was getting harder to make herself pronounce words properly. She tried to reach for the bottle again but Markov slapped her hand away. Weirdly enough, it barely even hurt. Did this count as being drunk? Because in that case, it was _awesome._

“Will you keep being friends with them when school is finished?” Markov asked.

“Yeah, duh,” she replied. “Max lives like a tiny plane ride away and we were already friends before, I can hang out with him whenever I want. And Kim… wait…”

A terrible thought occurred to her. She tried to get to her feet but her limbs simply weren’t responding, so she clumsily grabbed Markov out of the air again and held him right up near her face to hear her properly.

“His oracle sesh… shhs… thing! This summer, either he’ll go back home, or some bad thing will happen to him, and we don’t know which! And both suck, ‘cause I don’t want bad things happening to my friend, but if he goes home it’s so far away and I won’t see him for so long!”

It was getting more and more impossible to visualize a world map in her head, but the kingdom of Lê Chiến was all the way on another continent, and there were definitely no airports there. If Kim went back, he’d probably stay there for literal years.

“But you will be able to speak to him by telephone,” Markov said, the little propellers on his head spinning around in a way that made Alix’s head hurt.

“Only if they fix the tele… those cable things which Agreste broke. And that’s not the point! He’s… him… friend…”

Being drunk was suddenly starting to feel a lot less awesome. Letting go of Markov, she lurched over and grabbed the bottle, only to put it back down when the taste started to sicken her. Maybe she had drank it too fast after all.

“He is your friend and so you don’t want him to leave for a long time,” Markov said. “It will make you unhappy. That makes sense.”

She nodded, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her spinning head on them. “I never had close friends before. Not like him. And no one will think I care that much ‘cause I’m not _Max_ …”

“Are you crying?”

“N-no!” She gave him a shove. Was it the drink that made her all emotional? This was really starting to suck. “I’ll miss him, okay? Is that bad? I don’t want him to leave me… Is that shellfish? Am I shell… no… sh… shhh…”

Markov was laughing at her, and she was overcome by the strange urge to hit him. Her arm was already up in the air before she stopped herself – why would she hit a robot? That was mean. And _selfish_. There, she could say the word in her head. So why not out loud?

“Stop laughing, you know what I mean!” She settled for giving the stupid robot another shove, though her coordination was so off that she almost missed. “I should just let him go home and not be sad. But no one else is that fun, you’re all killjoys! There’s no one else like him. He’s stupid and reckless and crazy and the best and oh my god I love him and _why am I saying all this?!”_

Markov had those upturned arch eyes, looking smug as ever. “You drank too much so your inhibitions are lowered. You are speaking what’s on your mind.”

“What? No!” That had been way too cheesy, no one could find out! She tried to grab Markov but missed. “No I was just… ignore all that! I was joking, I… I really don’t care…”

 _.-.. .. .- .-._ the snake tapped out on the ground beside her.

“Oh shut up! I… look, don’t tell anyone what I said… one time he had a cold and I was saying all the mushy stuff to him ‘cause I thought he’d forget but he didn’t, and he’s already full of himshelf… sh… show-off… and I don’t want people thinking I’m all sh… shhh… oh _fuck_ alcohol, I’m never drinking again, I can’t shay anything…”

Markov had been quietly chuckling away, but now stopped and looked at her with bigger eyes than usual. “Alix, are you a tsundere?”

Did he… did he just…?

“Markov,” she said, “are you a frickin’ _weeb?”_

“Um… Max introduced me to anime, and I do rather like it a lot, and I did a lot of research about it too. The tsundere seems to be a common archetype. Defensively hiding one’s sweet nature with aggression.”

Alix couldn’t even focus on what he was saying. The thought of Markov watching anime was just too ridiculous for her to wrap her head around. A robot, who watched anime. It was just bizarre!

“C’mere, you lil weeaboo.” She finally managed to grab him and pulled him into a cuddle. “You… you… yandere.”

“That is a highly inaccurate term when applied to me. Do you even know what that means?”

“No. Yes. It means you kill people.”

“Well, sort of.” He wriggled out of her grasp and landed on the ground just beside her sceptre – she didn’t even remember having put it on the ground. “I doubt you’ll remember much of this in the morning. May I see Pharaoh Rania again?”

“Hololologram? Whyyyyy?”

“I’m… studying her.”

His voice seemed to have gone all wispy and weird again, though it was hard to tell right now. Was he hiding something? Whatever. Alix flipped open the lid of the sceptre for Markov to have a look at. He went right up close, his dotted eyes growing larger and larger. Seriously, what was he studying? How to make holograms or something?

In any case, Alix was far too dizzy and tired to keep her eyes open much longer. Should she take a nap? Right here, in the hall where the Peace Ball was being held?

Yeah, it was fine. The snake would wake her up if she needed to do anything. Closing her eyes, she let herself doze off.

 

 

 

 

Over in the Bourgeois Empire, Chloé and Sabrina were standing in the room just behind the royal balcony, waiting for the emperor to show up to give his annual Yuletide speech to the common people. Of course, peering out of the window, it appeared that many of these common people were carrying flaming pitchforks, so perhaps it wasn’t a good idea this year.

Sabrina was shaking slightly. “Chloé, this is just like how it was back home before… you know…”

Before the Raincomprix civil war started. Chloé had been expecting it, really. She had been sitting in on her father’s meetings whenever possible, trying to change things as much as she could, but no one paid any attention to her! She was just some little schoolgirl to all the corrupt advisors running the empire. And it was very, very obvious that the commoners were not going to take this for much longer.

Why did her father need to take so much money from them, anyway? What was he using all that money for? Upgrading those solid gold bathtubs, probably. Sumptuous feasts. Lavish clothes. Things that commoners could never afford, and for no reason other than the fact that he _could_.

But what about food production? What about infrastructure, education, amenities? All the things Chloé had learnt how to handle at school? It seemed that her father had learnt no such lessons, as he paid no attention to the real issues that needed to be addressed. The common people of this empire were _dying!_ They were starving, discontent, angry! And it was his fault!

If someone else didn’t step in soon, surely Bourgeois would go the same way as Raincomprix did.

“I’m going to go find him,” Chloé muttered, the grumbling from outside getting alarmingly loud. “He ought to have been here 10 minutes ago. You stay here, Sabrina.”

Sabrina nodded. Chloé walked out of the room as quick as her heavy, restrictive skirt would let her.

Her father would be in his office, right? She hurried over there to see that there were no guards around. What was up with that? She knocked on the door.

“Father? Are you in there? The people are waiting for your speech!”

The door opened and her father, wearing a thick coat, quickly pulled her inside and shut it again. “Chloé, good timing! The peasants will not accept my speech this year, you know it. We would be better off going into hiding. I’ve just finished packing all the emergency supplies, and arrangements have been made for us to safely get to Lavillant – I was just about to send someone to fetch you, in fact. Come on. Let’s go.”

He picked up a bag in the corner of the room and opened the bookcase to reveal a hidden passage behind it. Chloé was too shocked to even do anything for a few seconds. He wanted to go into hiding? Now?? Really??!

“What are you waiting for?” the emperor asked, gesturing to the passage. “Time to get going!”

She put her hands on her hips. “I am _not_ going into hiding.”

“Are you worried? Fear not, I’ve been keeping aside plenty of money from the treasury for this very purpose. We will be very well-off. Better than we would be here, in this unsafe empire. It’s falling apart.”

And whose fault was that?

“No!” Chloé snapped, to her father’s surprise. “You don’t understand, do you? The commoners need a leader! That’s what they’ve been wanting this whole time! They need someone to fix the empire, which _you_ broke, by the way.”

“Now, young lady–”

“Don’t you ‘young lady’ me! I would make a much better ruler than you ever did! We were one of the largest, richest empires in the world, and you’ve ruined all that! Made the commoners so unhappy they’re on the brink of revolting and harvesting our heads at the guillotine!”

Her father, eyes wide in shock, put a hand up to his neck. “That’s why we need to leave, _now.”_

“No, that’s why _you_ need to leave now. I’m staying here.”

He was silent for several seconds, before finally managing to respond. “Chloé, if you stay… you’re just a child, you don’t know how to rule… you’ll die!”

How pathetic – how unbelievably, ridiculously pathetic. No wonder her mother had left him.

“You’re a coward,” she spat. “Running away when the empire needs you most. You know what? I’ll be empress instead. I’ll take full control of the mess you’ve left, I’ll leave school, and I’ll fix this.”

“You can’t be empress! You don’t know what you’re doing!”

“Oh really? Says the man who has cost so many people their _lives_ thanks to his mismanagement! This isn’t just about me. This is about millions of people who need help. And if you’re not going to help them, then I bloody well will. Now hand over your crown.”

He hesitantly took the crown off his head, but did not yet give it to her. “Chloé, please… I implore you… think this through…”

“I have thought it through. I’ve been trying to make a difference for a long time now, and me being empress is the only way anyone will let me. So give me the crown! I order you to!”

She held out her hand. Shaking, he slowly stepped forwards and placed the crown on her outstretched palm.

“Very good.”

She swiped the wig off her head, then put the crown over her natural hair. While it had always looked too small for her father, it was a perfect fit for her.

“Thank you, father. You are no longer emperor, and we have no need for your services. Now get out of here before I throw you to the commoners waiting for you just outside.”

He nodded and ran to the opening of the passage again. Then he paused, turned back, and quickly rushed over to hug his daughter one last time. Chloé tried very hard not to cry. It had been ever so long since her father had last hugged her, and it was a shame that such dire circumstances were the only thing that could drive him to do it.

Then he was gone for good.

Immediately, Chloé sank to her knees, the layers of her dress folding beneath her – oh, she was empress, she was _empress._ Was this real?

This was such a huge burden she had just put on herself. An empire in shambles, with a court full of schemers, and angry commoners wanting her blood. A situation like this was nigh-unfixable.

But she had to fix it. Someone had to do it, and this was her chance. She had to be strong!

And plus, she was not in this alone. She had Sabrina with her right here. She had her friends at school – oh of course, she would have to leave school. Running an empire was going to be a full-time job from now on, and anyway, there hadn’t been that long left.

There was the International Alliance too…

They hated the Bourgeois Empire. Not as much as they hated Agreste, of course, but they hated it all the same. But now that it needed aid, would they accept an aid request from somewhere so vile? Surely they would? The people here were suffering, and Chloé simply could not do this alone!

There was no time for freaking out over her predicament. The commoners were waiting for a speech. She cleared her throat, smoothed out her dress, then went back to the balcony room.

“Chloé? Is that your dad’s crown? What the–”

“I’ll explain in the speech,” Chloé whispered to Sabrina as she walked past. The guards in the room all stared at her in confusion, but considering she had the crown on her head, they did not do anything else and simply watched as she made her way out onto the balcony, to the surprise of the commoners down below her.

She hadn’t even prepared for this. Of course she knew how to make speeches, but this was one that would surely be important. The difference between saving the empire and dooming it. Could she do it? She at least had to try.

“People of Bourgeois,” she said into the megaphone placed before her, magnifying her voice across the hordes of people below. She tried to ignore the weapons in their hands, or the way the guards were pushing back against the ones at the front. “I know you were expecting a speech from my father. However, he is no longer the emperor. He has fled the palace. I am your leader now.”

There were gasps from all over. Chloé wondered if people were going to start revolting immediately, but for now they waited, wanting to see what kind of empress she would be first.

“I wish to make it clear that I am not usurping. My father knew he was doing a terrible job of ruling the empire. I knew it too. I sat in on countless meetings and tried to make my voice heard. But the emperor’s word is law, and so he has been allowed to take away your money, your food, your safety. All for his own selfish gain. And now he has fled, like the coward he is, and tried to take me with him. I refused. This empire is in shambles and someone needs to fix it, someone who can learn from all the mistakes he made. That someone is me, his daughter: Empress Chloé of Bourgeois.”

There was a silence. No one stirred, no one made any move to do anything. It seemed that the whole crowd was holding its breath. Chloé's hands were shaking, so she balled them into fists to steady herself. No one must be allowed to see her terror. She had to show her citizens that she was strong, unlike her father.

“I do not know how quickly I will be able to enact changes in the way the empire is run. Most of the people in my employment were loyal to my father, so they may not agree with the path I am treading. But I promise you I will do everything in my power to do what is right. The most urgent matter at the moment is the shortage of food. My father was hoarding money in the treasury; I will redistribute that money to make sure there is enough food for everyone.”

The commoners were still silent, but many of them were starting to lower their weapons. It gave Chloé the courage she needed to continue. The next thing she wanted to say would be the hardest, but it had to be done.

“I am also temporarily cutting ties with the Agreste Empire, and rescinding the warrant for Imperial Prince Adrien. The funding that has been put into guards searching for him is money that would be better used elsewhere, such as food, infrastructure, or education. While Agreste and Bourgeois were never officially allied, my father took many bribes from them and I need that corrupt influence away from my court.”

Phew, she had said it. The guards and courtiers in the room behind her would be listening, and hopefully getting on with it as she was speaking. The sooner Adrien could safely return to school, the better.

“I will also be sending out aid requests to the International Alliance, as my father has ruined the empire far too much for us to handle alone. There are millions of people who need help, so we require all the assistance we can get. Hopefully this can get the empire back on our feet enough that the quality of life can improve for everyone, and not just the nobility.”

Most of the commoners had put down their weapons now, and many of them were… smiling?

“I will be leaving school from now on to stay here permanently to make my role as empress easier. Within time, once things are more stable, I will open up an elected council system so that citizens from all over the empire can have their voices heard and have a say in making decisions. I hope that you all will be happy with my decisions and support my reign. Well… what do you say?”

She put on a stately smile, leaning over the balcony railing. For a few seconds the commoners were still silent. But then began the chanting.

“Long live Empress Chloé! Long live Empress Chloé!”

They were pumping their fists in the air, jumping up and down, within a short amount of time becoming so loud and cheerful that Chloé could barely even hear herself think. Her smile grew – for now, at least, she had placated the commoners. If they were going to rebel, it was not going to be today. They were going to give her a chance.

Oh, thank goodness! She had done what her father couldn’t. Maybe things were going to turn out okay.


	66. The floor is lava

The peace conferences began the very next day, though luckily Lahiffe’s schedule was so relaxed that the first one took place in the afternoon, which gave Kim plenty of time to prepare for it with Max’s help, and gave Alix time to sleep off the annoying headache she seemed to have acquired – though that wasn’t easy when Markov flew in through an open window and started saying, “I told you so!” far too loudly.

The conference was similar to the one that Kim had attended last year, and at least this time he knew what to expect. When he walked into the room he was greeted by many other members of the International Alliance, some who he remembered meeting last time, some he couldn’t remember at all. The fact that they were all being so nice to him soothed his nerves a bit. Sure, these were the heads of the most powerful countries in the world, but that was a good thing, right? They wouldn’t judge him for needing their help – that was why the International Alliance existed in the first place!

Being a representative of an actual member state this time, Kim was given an allocated section of the room to sit in, which meant he wasn’t near his friends. He didn’t mind so much having to sit away from Alix, since she wouldn’t be any help to him, and Nino and Markov weren’t attending anyway. But Max was all the way in another corner with the diplomat from his country, and there would be no way to get any helpful whispered advice from over here…

Queen Sol opened with a generic speech, welcoming everyone in the room. Then she gestured to Kim, saying, “And an especially warm welcome to our newest member, Prince Kim of the kingdom of Lê Chiến!”

Plenty of smiles were thrown his way. For a second he froze up – was he supposed to say something? Already? Like, right now?

But then Sol carried on speaking, and he allowed himself to relax a little. It was strange to think how eager he had been to be a king when he was younger, not realizing that ruling a real country was like _this_ , and not the glamorous adventure he had always imagined it to be. Being an actual leader was seeming an ever more daunting task. Stressful meetings, making difficult decisions about things happening so far away they might as well not be real, having to act all proper so people wouldn’t see through everything and realize what a reckless idiot you were, the real threat of assassination…

He tried to pay attention. Last year he had been daydreaming the whole time, well, he wasn’t going to let that happen again! This time he put his head on his hands and actually tried to focus.

Yes, yes… news about a civil war going on in Raincomprix, oh, was that why Sabrina had been so miserable at school lately? Perhaps he should have asked her about it properly… something about the emperor of Bourgeois abdicating and fleeing the rebelling commoners, well that had been bound to happen at some point, hadn’t it… and apparently his daughter was the new empress now, so hopefully that would make things better and it would still be safe to go to school…

Wait.

The emperor’s daughter?

But that – that was _Chloé!_ Stuck-up Imperial Princess Chloé, the one from his class at school!

Surely she was way too young to be an empress? Too inexperienced? Still a student? How could she possibly be an empress?!

Kim snuck a look at Max to see him looking just as surprised at the news. Queen Sol was still speaking, though now what she was saying was interesting enough to actually pay attention to.

“The young empress, as of yet, seems to have the support of her citizens, wanting to make reforms. We have already received a request for food aid, as the supplies over in Bourgeois have been mismanaged for so long that there is simply not enough. This will be the second matter to discuss on our agenda for this year’s conferences. In the meantime, though, while Bourgeois does appear to be stable enough that our younger members will still be able to attend their school there, the empress herself will not be returning – and the state of the transport and school will most certainly deteriorate during this national crisis, perhaps making it more dangerous in the future to travel there.”

So Chloé wouldn’t be coming back to school? And from the sounds of things, neither would Sabrina. First Adrien, now them. How long until the rest of the dwindling royalty class went the same way? Kim had known for ages, just as everyone else had, that the Bourgeois Empire was crumbling to pieces, and it was only a matter of time before school itself would be cut off. But he hadn’t expected it to happen while he was still attending.

Sol had now moved onto some other topic, and Kim found himself unwillingly zoning out again. He just didn’t understand half the stuff she was saying! And then she started taking opinions on certain issues from the rest of the members, and Kim sat there silently with nothing to contribute except nodding along whenever anyone said anything that sounded vaguely sensible.

At least Max and Alix didn’t bother saying anything either. Maybe it wasn’t just Kim being dumb after all – maybe it was just that he didn’t know the others here that well, and didn’t have much experience with this sort of stuff, and maybe ten years down the line he would actually be able to participate properly in these discussions.

If he even survived that long…

In fact, it did seem to be a thing that the younger members in the room were quiet. And he knew for a fact he wasn’t the only one not paying attention – the foreign princess sitting opposite him, the one from the Peace Ball yesterday, wouldn’t stop gazing at him whenever she thought he wasn’t looking! As much as he liked the attention, he did wonder if he should go public about Max being his sweetheart, just in case she was going to try anything. Being as handsome as he was, he knew when someone was checking him out.

What was her name? He had been introduced to her once but he couldn’t quite remember, and the loopy cursive handwriting on her name card was impossible to read from here. O… Oudiee? Something like that? Eh, whatever.

The rest of the peace conference for that day passed without anything eventful. It was just like being at school, really – so much to take in all at once and no time to process it! By the end of it Kim’s brain was spinning from so many place names and people names and events that he would probably have forgotten all about by tomorrow. Well, perhaps not, since the conferences were continuing tomorrow, and as the only available representative from his country, he had to attend.

So… this was what his life would be like all the time after being crowned king. _Great._

 

 

Over in the Bourgeois Empire, the new empress was having a difficult time too. Chloé had ordered plenty of emergency meetings to keep the fragile empire afloat long enough for help to arrive, and yet her only loyal subject seemed to be Sabrina, who wasn’t even from here – all the supposed “advisors” kept lazing around and making excuses not to show up! No wonder her father had made such a mess of the empire if those were the kind of people at his side.

She was half tempted to fire them, but that would result in backlash and contempt. At least for now she just had to deal with it. Technically, as empress, her word was final and she was allowed to make decisions without input. But the commoners were waiting to see what kind of ruler she would be, and she didn’t want to give off the impression that she was the kind of person to disregard all advice, or some kind of dictator, or anything like that.

It was just such a difficult position to be in! School could never have prepared her for the stress of _this!_

She had spoken once on the phone to Adrien since then. It was still dangerous, of course, but a little less so now that Bourgeois and Agreste had officially cut ties. She had told him that while there was not a bounty on his head any longer, the message would take longer to travel to the more inaccessible regions of the empire where guards were still stationed – regions that Adrien would have to travel through if he wanted to come back to school. For now, at least, it would be best for him to just stay put.

Sabrina entered the room just as Chloé was putting the phone down.

“Chloé, I have good news!”

“Oh, thank goodness…” Chloé rubbed her temples, ignoring the powder sticking to her fingertips. She had bigger problems to deal with right now than keeping her makeup flawless, as much as it hurt.

“Opening up cheap trade with Raincomprix has worked. Almost all the faction leaders have agreed to a temporary ceasefire and negotiations, and they’ve removed the execution order on my family! My dad’s going to go there immediately and see if he can get things to a peaceful solution.”

Chloé breathed a sigh of relief. That really was good news! The fate of Sabrina’s kingdom and family had really been haunting her, and it lifted a huge weight off her to know that there was a solution to it.

“So what do we do next?” Sabrina asked.

“Are you staying here then?”

“I think it’s safer for now. I don’t really trust the faction leaders, but my father knows what he’s doing. And you, you’re not just running a country, but a whole empire! You need my help!”

It had been like that for years. Sabrina was always helping out Chloé with everything. Carrying her things for her like some kind of medieval lady-in-waiting, doing her homework for her once they’d started school, always there for her even when she didn’t deserve it. Chloé felt grateful – and more than a little guilty.

“Sabrina, thank you so much,” she said, aware that tears were building up behind her eyes. “You’ve already been a great help. It really kind of feels like it’s just us two, trying to save millions of people all on our own…”

What would she give to have anyone else here right now with her? Someone to take care of things long enough for her to rest, long enough for Sabrina to have a break from the unfortunate political situations she just couldn’t escape from no matter where she went.

Anyone, anyone from school, anyone at all!

But wait… there was someone.

“Hold on,” Chloé said, beginning to rifle through the phonebook again. “There must be a number for Rossi in here, surely…”

“Are you talking about Lila?” Sabrina asked. “What are you calling her for? Are you going to ask her for help too?”

“Exactly. She ran her own spy ring at school when Adrien was in danger, and I’m sure she could do the same here. Her help would be so invaluable, wouldn’t it?”

“She would have to somehow leave her country and come here, though…”

“The sooner the better, before the empire collapses any further. Don’t forget she’s not ‘properly’ a princess, since her father’s title isn’t hereditary. Strictly speaking, she’s a noble, and therefore she can move countries whenever she wants. No abdicating necessary. And with her help, I’m sure things will go a lot smoother!”

A smile lit up Sabrina’s face. “You’re right! With the three of us working together, we can definitely sort this out!”

“I suppose our class back at school will have to get used to all three of us being absent, won’t it?... Aha, I’ve found the number… well, here I go…”

Chloé dialled the number in and waited. She and Lila were in similar time zones, weren’t they? Hopefully she would be around…

“Hello?”

That was Lila’s voice – how lucky was it that she was the one to answer the phone? Usually an official would do it!

“Lila, it’s me!” Chloé said. “Chl–”

“Ah, hello sweetheart. I thought I would be hearing from you. That’s why I’ve snuck the phone into my room.”

Oh, classic Lila, always so cunning and devious. Chloé fought off a rather unladylike grin. “Listen darling, I need your help.”

“Let me guess – you want me to join you in Bourgeois as a member of your court?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess, I suppose! In any case, Rossi has been feeling rather… _stifling_ lately. I would welcome a challenge.”

“So you’ll come here? Are you alright with having to leave school? Will your parents mind?”

“I am 18 years old, my parents can’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. Helping you out with your empire is much more important than school. I want to make a global impact.”

Of course she did. Lila loved being the centre of attention. It made sense for her to want to be remembered as a hero for helping fix up one of the world’s biggest and most broken empires.

“Well then, I’ll be eagerly awaiting your arrival,” Chloé said, curling the telephone wire around her finger absent-mindedly.

“I’ll try to make the journey quick,” Lila replied. “So… see you soon?”

“Yes. See you soon.”

“Well… I’m in no hurry, so you can be the first to hang up…”

“No, you do it! I’m the one who made the call in the first place, so…”

“I think you should be the one to...”

“No, you ought to…”

Chloé could see Sabrina trying very hard to supress a laugh out of the corner of her eye. Well, so what if she didn’t want her short conversation with Lila to end? She missed her!

But at least she’d see her soon again, and with her help, the three of them could surely overcome the odds stacked against them. The empire would survive. It had to. It was just a matter of time and effort, that was all.

 

 

 

 

The remaining peace conferences over the next few weeks were much the same as how the first one had been. Kim barely said anything during them, and looked forward to the times in between when he could just hang out with his friends and have fun, without having to think about complicated politics. It always seemed so much effort to get anything done this way! The Bourgeois Empire needed aid, but it had to be thoroughly discussed and put to a vote before any action could take place – was it always like that? Even in emergencies?

By the time the holidays were ending, Kim was glad to be returning to school. Lahiffe would have been a much nicer place if he’d actually had the opportunity to enjoy it properly. At least he was already used to school. Luckily the Bourgeois Empire still seemed to be doing well enough to keep the place open, so it was alright to return for now.

Just before he was leaving the palace to get on the train, right as the porters were taking his luggage, a few of the little nobles who hung around here ran over to him with a box in hand.

“Prince Kim!” one of them said, holding it out at him. “We just wanna say you’re really cool! Here’s a thank you present for being Nino’s friend!”

Kim took the box, very much hoping that this was not chocolate. “Uh, thanks guys… what is this?”

“COFFEE!” a smaller one screeched.

Coffee? Kim opened the box, expecting to see coffee beans, but it appeared that they had all been ground up into fine brown powder already. He took a smell – okay wow, that was… kind of awful. But hey, he had always wanted to try coffee. Even if it was gross.

“This is really awesome,” he said, putting a big smile on his face, knowing Nino’s little cousins were always very impressed no matter what he did or said. “I can’t wait to drink all of this and get really hyper, just like you.”

He poked the little one on the nose, making him giggle.

“Yay, I’m glad you like it, Prince Kim sir!”

“Nino drinks coffee when he needs to have energy,” the other one said. “You already have lots of energy though, so what will happen when you drink it? Will you be unstoppable?”

“Heck yeah!” Kim flexed one of his arms. “I’ll do million push-ups and lift up seventeen people at once. I’ll outrun a panther. I’ll…”

“Miss your train because you’re too busy showing off?”

Oh, of course, the train! Lahiffe was a kingdom that placed far less emphasis on differences between social ranks and classes, so a train wouldn’t be delayed even for royalty.

“You’re right, I gotta go,” he said. “But I’ll see you again someday, I promise!”

They waved at him, beaming. “See you, Prince Kim!”

How sweet, honestly. No wonder Nino was such an awesome, chill person when he had people like that to hang out with all the time. And they had given him coffee because they wanted him to be “unstoppable”? That was so nice of them!

Kim turned around to leave, only to almost drop the coffee box when he saw that foreign princess right there, walking towards him – how long had she even been there?! Had she been watching him? It looked like she was going to speak to him, but he really didn’t have time. Pretending he hadn’t noticed her, he ran off to catch up with the porters and catch his train.

 

 

 

The first difference about school was the fact that there were fewer guards at the entrance. Supposedly Chloé had been diverting funds from the school for use in more urgent matters, such as making sure the populace had enough to eat in areas that weren’t quite as affluent.

The second difference was that there had already been a sharp drop in the number of students attending. While all of the royalty class were still in attendance, aside from Adrien, Chloé, Sabrina and Lila, there were noticeably fewer nobles around. Perhaps they didn’t consider the empire stable enough anymore?

Whatever it was, it put a strangely sombre mood back over the school. Classes went on as usual, far away from all the chaos and mess that was going on in other regions of the empire, but with an underlying sense of unease. It seemed like things were _shifting_ somehow. Was it good? Bad? No one knew.

 

 

 

“Hmm, yes, I have come to a conclusion,” Max said, picking up the beaker of liquid on the table in front of him, adjusting his glasses. “From the tests I have done, I can conclude that this coffee does not contain any poison, other than the fact that caffeine itself can be toxic when taken in large enough quantities. This is safe to drink.”

“Yes!” Kim pumped a fist in the air. “Thank you so much! So, how much of this stuff can I drink without dying?”

Max put the beaker back down, sighing. “I’d usually say not to drink above six cups per day, but considering how hyperactive you already are, that number should be much lower for you…”

Kim was already dunking coffee powder into a mug and waiting for the kettle to boil. “Six? Cool. I can’t wait.”

“Kim, why do you even want to drink so much coffee? What’s the point?”

“Coffee gives you energy! I’m already super strong, but now I’ll be even stronger! Won’t that be cool?”

Max had already started laughing before Kim had even finished speaking. “So you want to impress me with your super strength, is that it?”

“Well um… yeah, I guess…” Kim turned back towards the kettle, hiding his blushing face. Trust Max to be able to see right through him.

“In that case, I should tell you that coffee doesn’t work like that and it won’t give you super strength. Restlessness, insomnia, possibly anxiety, yes. Somewhat similar to a sugar rush, perhaps, and you already know what that feels like.”

“A sugar rush, but from this bean juice stuff? Nice.”

“And I’m already very impressed,” Max continued, “so you don’t need to try too hard on that. Though keep going, by all means. It’s very entertaining. And cute.”

Even without looking, he could tell Max had a smug grin on his face. Kim tried to keep his hand steady as he poured the boiling water into the mug. “Yeah, well… you’re cute too, so there…”

“Oh, and coffee can be quite hard to drink without adding milk and sugar into it. It’s very bitter.”

“Milk? Sugar? Max, do you think I’m some kind of _wimp?”_ Kim turned around with the mug in hand and took a sip, flinching a little when it burnt his tongue but quickly ignoring that. It had been so hot that he couldn’t even taste it anyway. “I don’t need any of that lame stuff. I’m gonna drink six whole cups of this stuff, and then I’m gonna… I’m…”

“And then you’ll go do something incredibly reckless, like try to walk on the roof drainpipes, or pick up Alix and dunk her into a basketball hoop, or accidentally propose to me again, or…”

Wait, he remembered that?! Kim hurriedly took another sip of coffee – then almost dropped the mug as it burned him again. Max was watching him with the most annoying, _adorable_ smile on his face.

“Maybe I’ll wait for this to cool down before drinking it, haha…” He put the mug on the table.

Hmm… slam-dunking Alix into a basketball hoop did sound very fun…

 

 

Six cups of coffee later, Kim flew down the corridor with Max trailing behind at a sensible walking pace. This really did feel like a sugar rush – he had so much energy and nothing to do with it!

“Alix, there you are!” he yelled when he saw her hanging out with Markov near the entrance to the library.

“Kim?” She frowned at him. “Why are you yelling? And running? You’ll get a deten–”

“I just drank six cups of coffee and I’m gonna slam-dunk you into a basketball hoop!”

“Wait, _what?!_ No – no wait – don’t – uhhh THE FLOOR IS LAVA!”

Kim hadn’t heard that phrase since when he was little, when he and Marinette would try to get across entire rooms without touching the floor. Something in his brain kicked into action. Before he could even think, he leapt up onto the display table nearby. Alix took several steps away.

“There we go. Now you can’t get down, and I am perfectly safe from being slam-dunked into a freaking basketball hoop, like jeez Kim, what the hell…”

Oh, so that was why she had said it? To keep him trapped up here? That was so unfair!

“Well the slam-dunking thing was Max’s idea, so there!” he snapped, crossing his arms.

“No it wasn’t!” came Max’s voice from down the corridor as he finally caught up. “Well alright… maybe a little bit…”

“And the floor is lava for you guys too,” Kim added. “Either everyone plays or no one does.”

While Max was content to look down at his feet, shrug, and say, “I guess I die then, I’ve lost, too bad,” Alix instead hopped up onto the display table too, followed by scrambling up Kim and sitting on his shoulder, with her pet snake sitting on _her_ shoulder.

“Hey, that’s cheating!” Kim said, wondering if he dared knock her off, or if she would literally kill him for that.

“Nope. Rules are that we’re not allowed to touch the floor. I can sit here as long as I like.”

“I… I’ll…”

“Slam-dunk me? Well I don’t see any hoops around, or anything to help you get away from here, so I guess you’re stuck until you inevitably lose. Which means I win.”

No! He couldn’t give up that easily! Max and Markov were both there giggling away at him, and he had so wanted to impress Max, rather than making a fool of himself like he always did!

But what else could he do…? He just had to let this annoying tiny pharaoh perch on his shoulder like some kind of parrot sidekick or something…

Well, unless she got so annoyed that she _intentionally_ left, of course…

“You’re so scrawny,” he said, poking her in the arm. “Look at this. No wonder you can’t win an arm wrestle anymore, you’re tiny! My neck is bigger than your thigh, I swear. Markov, get over here and use your magic camera laser vision to measure…”

He trailed off when he noticed that the snake was tapping out something on the side of Alix’s pharaoh headdress.

_\--. --- / --. . - / .- / ... -.- .- - . -... --- .- .-. -..!_

“That’s a great idea!” Alix said. “Markov, you got that, right?”

Markov nodded, those little eyes becoming smiling arcs. “I’ll go do that right away!” He whizzed off without another word.

“What did… what…?” Kim looked at Max for help. “Do you know Morse code, by any chance?”

“Only a little,” Max said, very much looking like he was trying and failing to get his laughter under control. “The snake was going too fast so I didn’t quite understand.”

“Oh, Alix, whatever you’re up to, I swear, I’ll get revenge–”

Markov returned, carrying a skateboard in that little hand of his. Why was he doing that? The next second he dropped it onto the floor, and Alix immediately leapt off Kim’s shoulder and landed on it.

“Yes, I’m free! The floor may be lava, but a skateboard isn’t!” She put the snake down by her feet. “Hey buddy, you’ll give me a push, right?”

The snake started pushing the skateboard down the corridor with its tail.

“Bye, Kim! Have fun being stuck on that table all day! And I’ll be having fun being _not_ slam-dunked!”

Kim had been watching in disbelief, and now had to stop himself from just launching off the table. “Hey, you! Get back here! You can’t leave me here!”

But she had. The skateboard was now out of sight, with stupid Alix and that stupid snake on it. Markov, cackling surprisingly evilly for an adorable little robot, flew off after her. Yeah, he definitely, _definitely_ spent too much time with her considering that annoying Kim on purpose seemed to have become his new favourite pastime.

Kim sat down on the edge of the table, so much energy running through his blood he could practically hear his own internal organs. Maybe he did have too much coffee after all…

“You know, you’re allowed to lose,” Max said, stepping over and giving Kim’s cheek a little stroke.

“Not to her, I can’t!”

“The floor isn’t really lava, sweetie.”

“Mmmm I know…”

“You can’t spend all your coffee energy if you’re stuck here, can you?”

That was a good point. But still, the thought of surrendering a challenge, when he never surrendered challenges, never ever…

“She’ll gloat loads if I let her win,” he whined.

“But so would you! Is it really worth it? You’ll look rather ridiculous staying there all day, on a table in a corridor of all places. Shallow victories are very short-lived, and the instant gratification accelerates your reckless nature…”

Aww, he was being nerdy again. “Max, if you just stay here with me then it won’t be so bad. She’ll step off the skateboard at some point, ‘cause she’s as stupid and forgetful as I am, and then I’ll have won. And if you’re talking to me then people won’t think I’m a weirdo for staying here. They’ll just think we’re chatting.”

“Or…” Max stepped a little closer, and Kim was rather glad that no one else was around to see how red it made his face. “…I could just promise you a kiss if you step off that table and join me here in the lava…”

Kim leaned forward. “Or you could just kiss me right now, while there’s no one around…”

For a second Max hesitated, but then he grinned and started walking away. “Sorry, Kim! My mind is made up. Come and find me later, if you ever make it off that table! Perhaps get Ivan to carry you?”

“Hey, Max! Not you too! Wait!”

But Max was also gone.

Kim knew he was being stupid and stubborn. But he never allowed himself to be the loser when it came to the floor being lava! Marinette had never won a single game against him, despite how often they used to play it. He had to stay here on this table, his hands practically shaking with so much jittery energy and nothing to do with it.

And he wasn’t going to ask Ivan to carry him!

 

After a while several nobles passed by without comment. Some time later, more nobles came out of the library, giving him strange looks but not saying anything. He was grateful that the school currently had a lower population – though quickly reminded himself that the Bourgeois Empire being in such a mess was probably not something to be happy about.

Marinette was the first person to say something when she passed by.

“Oh – Kim! What are you doing there?”

“Um… I…”

“Is this a silly challenge?”

“Sort of,” he admitted. “You see, Alix said the floor is lava, so…”

Marinette giggled. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”

“Of course I have! I used to be all arrogant and mean and a jerk, but I’m way cooler now, so I’ve changed loads! I just don’t like losing challenges, and anyway I’m probably going to win, ‘cause I always win…”

“Why are you talking so fast?”

“I drank six cups of coffee. It didn’t taste great but I didn’t even put any milk or sugar in it, that’s how hardcore I am. Can anyone else chug six cups of black coffee in a row? I don’t think so.”

“I’ve chugged seven,” Marinette said, completely deadpan, before walking away.

“SEVEN?! Wait, Mari! Come back!”

Oh, she had gone too! Well, he couldn’t expect anyone to stay here with him for long when they all probably had things to be doing with their lives. He didn’t even have his phone with him! This was really starting to suck.

Several more people passed, some of them making comments, some just judging silently.

“Kim, why are you randomly sitting on this table?”

“Kim, why are you taking a nap here right now?”

“Kim, I’ve passed you three times now, don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Kim, need me to carry you anywhere?”

“No I don’t, Ivan!” Kim snapped, as Ivan walked past with a smirk on his face. He was half sure Max must have said something to him to make him say that.

This was getting so, so tedious. Kim had almost fallen off the table while trying to doze off for a while, which was impossible anyway because of how hyper his brain was right now. Maybe this would have been a little easier if he hadn’t had all that coffee! And up here on this table there was no way to get to a nearby toilet either, which was probably going to be an issue soon.

Well…

If he lost this challenge to Alix, then fine. Whatever. He could take it. He was cool enough to do that. He wasn’t the same stubborn fool that he used to be, right? And it wasn’t like he hadn’t already lost challenges to Alix before.

Plus, his head was suddenly starting to feel strangely heavy, like all that caffeine energy had left him in a rush. Just like the crash at the end of a sugar high.

He tentatively dangled a foot over the edge of the table. Dare he do it? Walk on the lava?

Pfff, it wasn’t lava, it was just floor. He put one foot down, then the other. There! Was that so difficult? Now he just had to go find Max, and hopefully avoid Alix for the rest of his life. He ran off down the corridor – then slowed to a walk as the tiredness hit him.

Yep, drinking six cups of coffee in a row had probably been a bad idea, and he hadn’t even got to slam-dunk Alix after all that…

 

“Max, I did it!” he said, stumbling into Max’s room and immediately sitting on the bed. “I walked on the lava! And now I have a headache…”

Before he even knew it, Max walked over and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Good! And by the way, you actually won the challenge.”

“Um… what?” Kim was not sure if he had heard right, either due to being so drowsy, or being dazed thanks to Max’s kiss – something that he still wasn’t used to, even after all this time.

“Alix just sent me a message saying that she stepped off the skateboard the second she was out of sight and just carried on her day as normal. She just thought it would be funny to leave you there all day.”

“What?! That – that pesky little–”

“Yes, she’s pure evil, isn’t she?” Max chuckled, sitting down beside Kim. “Though technically you could have claimed to have won anyway. You haven’t taken off your shoes yet, so you’ve been walking on those the whole time, not the floor. Technically speaking.”

Trust Max to be able to come up with the best solution of all! Kim put an arm around his sweetheart, some of his fatigue somehow melting away. “Well then, you haven’t lost either…”

“No, I suppose I haven’t…”

“Hey! I just remembered! It’s not long until the Cupid Festival, which is our first anniversary! We have to do something special!”

“Like what?” Max asked. “Should I show up below your window with a guitar and serenade you? Put a rose between my teeth? I know how much of a hopeless romantic you are.”

Kim was indeed already swooning just at the thought of it, and hastily tried to put his brain back into gear. “Um… that would be sweet…”

“In that case it’s settled. This year it’s me doing the thing with the guitar. Perhaps we can go to the fountain again and have a picnic or something. We can decide nearer the time.”

Kim just pulled Max closer, his heart picking up speed in a way that felt so much better than coffee. The Cupid Festival this year was going to be awesome, no matter what. He would make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @ the kiddos reading this fic, don't drink too much coffee or alcohol or you will do dumb things like get stuck in a game of the floor is lava for way too long and end up having a breakdown, and of course this has never personally happened to me or anything haha
> 
> 6 more chapters to go now!! (unless anything changes drastically lol)


	67. Bittersweet

Over the next few weeks, the school population dropped even lower. While the new Empress Chloé did seem to have avoided a full-on civil war by the skin of her teeth, that certainly didn’t mean that the Bourgeois Empire was stable or prospering, and it showed. There were even fewer guards and servants than before, and it was strange to be able to walk around the entire school without seeing any renovation work going on at all for once.

Most of the students who left were the younger nobles, afraid of being far away from home for so long during such turbulent times. The remainder of the royalty class was still intact for now, though who knew how long that was going to last. Class seemed strangely quiet without Chloé’s incessant nattering going on in the background. Lady Caline did her best to keep everyone’s spirits up, trying not to give them too much homework and encouraging their friendships, but there still seemed to be a storm cloud hanging over the school.

By the time of the Cupid Festival, that storm cloud had become literal. Aurore herself had left the school, deeming it no longer satisfactory to her elegant tastes, and Mireille’s broken heart was influencing the weather so strongly that there was a torrential downpour for the whole week, and it simply wouldn’t cease.

Kim woke up on the morning of the Cupid Festival to the sound of that rain again, the endless rain that had been going on for days now. His heart sank – how were he and Max supposed to have their anniversary picnic at the fountain if it was still raining? Well, perhaps the rain would have stopped by afternoon, and they could still go ahead with it…

There was a knocking sound on his window. He went over to open the curtains, before it hit him – how could someone be knocking on his _window?_

Looking outside, he didn’t see anything strange in the sky. No birds hitting the window, no one climbing up here to play some prank on him. Just the raindrops.

There was another tap on the window. This time Kim saw it himself – someone had thrown a stone at it. He looked down at the ground to see two people standing there under an umbrella, looking up at him. Not just any people. Max and Alix! From the looks of it, Alix was getting ready to chuck another stone.

Kim opened the window, ignoring the splashes of rain that got onto his arms. “Guys! What the heck are you doing?”

Alix was the one holding the umbrella over them, since Max seemed to be carrying a… okay wow, he was carrying an actual guitar with him, and a megaphone too.

“Good morning Kim!” Max said through the megaphone. “I can’t actually hear you from down here, by the way, so you don’t need to say anything. Anyway, I promised you a guitar serenade like this, didn’t I? I doubt you’ll be able to hear it over the rain, and also I can’t really play the guitar, but I’m not going to let any of that stop me, and Alix very kindly agreed to steal Marinette’s umbrella to keep me dry…”

Kim just watched in amazement as Max proceeded to attempt to play the guitar far below, barely audible at all. Alix seemed to be laughing, earning her occasional glares from Max. To be fair, Kim would probably be laughing too if he could actually hear the guitar – he knew perfectly well that Max didn’t know how to play!

“There, I did it!” Max was talking through the megaphone again, audible once more. “I’m sorry that wasn’t particularly romantic, but I wasn’t counting on the rain. I’ll see you for our picnic later, which I’m sure will be much better!”

The window in the room beside Kim’s opened too, and he stuck his head out to see Marinette there, looking down at the courtyard, bewildered. “Max? Alix? Is that… my umbrella?”

“Bye Kim!” Max said quickly, and he and Alix rushed off before Marinette could say anything else.

Well… that had been an odd start to the morning. Was the rest of the Cupid Festival going to be this weird?

 

 

 

Alix already had a bunch of friendship stickers stuck all over her pet snake from various people by the time she managed to track down Markov to give him one too. He was in the “new” wing of the school – though it had been around for a year already by this point – hovering just far enough behind the large balcony over the river that the roof protected him from the rain. Evidently he wasn’t cold at all, though probably because he was a robot.

“Markov, there you are!” She ran over and stuck a friendship sticker to his forehead. “Happy Friendship Festival. Yes, I said Friendship.”

He stared at her silently for a few seconds, before speaking oddly quietly for once. “Alix, I… I have a confession to make.”

Really? What could a _robot_ possibly need to confess?

“Did you kill anyone?” she asked. After all, this balcony wasn’t exactly the safest place, despite being so big. Maybe Markov accidentally pushed someone off the edge or something. Or maybe he electrocuted someone with the rather dodgy-looking chandelier in the room just behind the balcony. It would be easy enough to push someone off the staircase to make them land on it. Or something like that.

“No, I haven’t killed anyone! It’s not a bad confession. Just… a strange one.”

“Oh, okay.”

“The truth is… I am no longer like you. I now know what it feels like to be in love.”

Markov was in love with someone?! A robot, made out of metal and wires, had actually fallen in love?

Alix had to stop herself giving a rather spiteful retort – honestly, to think that a _robot_ could fall in love, and yet she couldn’t, and Markov was a traitor for…

No, she couldn’t think stuff like that, that was mean! She was past the stage of being bitter about things, right? She was cool with everything now. And this was obviously something important to Markov, so she very firmly told herself to take it seriously and stop being a jerk.

“How do you know?” she asked, before wishing she hadn’t said that. It made it sound like she didn’t believe him or something, but she did. She knew too well what it felt like to not have people believe her. And anyway, Markov already had emotions. Considering that, him falling in love wasn’t a stretch.

“It is the conclusion that seems to make the most sense,” he said. “She fascinates me beyond what appears to be normal, and when I see her my internal processors start overheating for no discernible reason, and my logic pathways seem to malfunction terribly, she makes me feel so strangely happy, and I wish I could tell her how I feel but I can’t…”

Hearing a friend gushing about unrequited love seemed to kick Alix back into winggirl mode instantly. “Yes you can! Give her a Cupid sticker and tell her the truth, whoever she is!”

“No, it’s not like that. It would not work. It is impossible for me to ever be with her, no matter what.”

“Are you sure? I know you’re a robot, but still. You could totally date a human.”

“The problem is not that I’m a robot or that she is human. It is something more fundamental than that. And I must resign myself to the fact that it cannot happen, and move on, though it makes me unhappy…”

A rather unnerving thought had just occurred to Alix. “Dude… it’s not _me_ , is it?”

“What? No, it’s not you!” Markov laughed, bobbing up and down and poking her in the nose. “I do like you a lot, but the same way I like all my friends! Though you are very pretty to look at. Especially when you’re doing sports, and you wear those… sporty clothes… uh, I think my CPU is overheating again… um…”

“So who is it then?” Alix asked quickly, deciding to ignore that last part.

“Oh! It’s… um, well, you see, she’s dead. So I cannot confess my feelings to her, unless ghosts are real, but as of now I have no way to detect them. She will never know the truth.”

“You’re in love with a dead person. Uh, okay.”

“But she’s a wonderful dead person! You yourself told me how amazing she is!”

Really? Alix could not remember ever telling Markov about any cool dead ladies.

Wait… unless…

She flicked open the lid of her sceptre, revealing the little blue hologram of Pharaoh Rania.

“Are you talking about this dead lady?”

Markov’s dot eyes had already transformed into hearts. He zoomed up close to the hologram, his fans whirring so loud they could be heard over the rain. “Yes… it’s her… she’s so beautiful…”

So he was in love with the hologram of a long dead pharaoh. For several seconds Alix just stared, in stunned silence. Out of everyone she could have possibly expected Markov to fall in love with, Rania wouldn’t have even made the list.

“So you have a crush on my like great-great aunt or something,” she said finally. “My ancestor. Who has been dead for a hella long time.”

“Yes.”

“Well… uh… one time Jalil did decipher an old text that seemed to be a necromancy ritual, so maybe it’s not totally hopeless, but like…”

Markov snapped out of his reverie. “No, don’t wake her from the dead! Let her rest!”

“Um, okay.”

“And anyway, she was already married, and she was old by the time she died, so she would not have looked like this… though of course that doesn’t matter to me! Looks are not more important than personality when it comes to love, I know that. For example, you look nice, but that doesn’t mean I… I mean, you have a nice personality too… you look a little like Rania, actually… but I’m not – I’m not saying I–”

Alix snapped shut the sceptre. “Stop making it weird.”

“Right! Sorry.” Little dark blue blush circles were creeping up under his eyes. “Anyway, none of this matters, because Rania is long dead. I should move on. I have this Cupid sticker I’ve been keeping in my pocket, so I suppose I should give it to someone else.”

“Pocket?”

Markov retracted his arm for a second, then pulled it out again holding one of those heart-shaped Cupid stickers in his hand. “Yes, pocket. Sometimes I store food in there. I don’t know what it feels like to eat, but I can always pretend!”

Oh yes, of course Markov couldn’t eat. Somehow that seemed so much more depressing than him being in love with someone who was already dead – though maybe that was just Alix’s priorities being in a weird order.

“Who should I give this to?” he asked.

“I dare you to give it to Lady Mendeleiev.”

“What? But I don’t like her!”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s a _dare_. She’ll be mad at you but it’ll be so worth it.”

Markov shook his head. “I don’t want to waste this sticker. And I wouldn’t want to play with anyone’s feelings, not even Mendeleiev. Maybe I’ll just have to… pretend it’s a friendship sticker… and give it to a friend instead…”

“Like Max? He’s the one who created you, after all.”

“No, the only person he should get one from is Kim! I was actually thinking… well… someone else… I mean, it isn’t a big deal, but…”

He had started drifting ever so slightly closer, the blue blushy marks back, CPU whirring so fast Alix could feel the heat from here. Rolling her eyes, she just snatched the sticker off him. “Okay yeah, I get it, fine. I’ll have this sticker. Now get out of here before you self-combust, you lovesick toaster.”

Markov did not need to be told twice. “Bye!” He zoomed off and out of sight.

Alix opened up the sceptre again and stuck the Cupid sticker on the underside of the lid, where it could be with Rania all the time. “Somehow I don’t think Rania’s the one he really likes…”

The snake nodded in reply. Poor Markov, he probably didn’t even realize it. She’d just have to find a way to set him up with someone. Someone who was okay with dating a robot, somehow. Or get Max to build more robots, so that Markov could have an immortal companion who would stick around forever, just like him.

“Hey! Alix!”

She turned around to see Kim running over, looking pleased – crap, he wasn’t going to try to throw in her a basketball hoop again, was he?

“How much coffee have you had?” she asked quickly.

“Huh? None, don’t worry!” He had something strapped to his shoulders, and once close enough she saw that it was the lute thing he had used to play her songs on the previous Cupid Festivals. “I’m just happy because Marinette’s made cookies and she’s gonna give some to Mireille, so hopefully that’ll change the weather, and then me and Max can have a picnic date like we were supposed to.”

“Isn’t it too cold for a picnic outdoors?”

“Pfffff, as if a bit of cold weather is gonna bother me. We have coats, we may as well use them. Anyway, I have something to do for you, so…”

“I know already,” she said. “You’re going to tell me to shut up and not laugh, and then you’re gonna play me a song, and then you’ll give me a friendship sticker and tell me how awesome I am.”

“Nope!”

He went and sat down on the nearby bench with his lute in hand, then patted at the seat beside him.

“C’mere. I have a way cooler present this year.”

Really? Like what? She sat down next to him, and then he handed the lute over to her along with a guitar pick.

“There you go. This instrument is your present this time. It’s called the đàn nguyệt and it’s all the way over from my kingdom, so you’ll take care of it, yeah?”

“Wait, what? You’re giving me _this?”_

“Yep!”

“But… I don’t even know how to play it…”

She took a closer look at it. The end of it was circular, and there were only two strings. It might look like an ordinary guitar from a distance, but close up it didn’t resemble one at all.

“I’ll teach you how to play it, don’t worry,” Kim said. “You taught me a bit of electric guitar that one time, remember? I’ve kinda forgotten most of it, but still.”

Oh yes… that had been years ago, during the cursed spring holidays. She had almost forgotten about it by now.

“So, are you ready to learn?”

Alix nodded, still too surprised to say much – she hadn’t expected to be getting music lessons today, of all things.

“Okay. The name of the instrument means ‘moon lute’ and it’s got these two strings made of silk, and you can pretty much tune it how you want, though I’ve put them a 5th apart for now, and…”

For a while he explained various things about the instrument itself, far more knowledgeable than usual. Then he began teaching her to play simple little notes on it. It certainly did have a different feel to a guitar, despite still being a string instrument.

The strangest thing was how good a teacher Kim was. For once he wasn’t being his usual annoying competitive self, as much fun as that always was. He was being…

Well, he was being more like Max!

Maybe all that tutoring he’d been getting had ended up being put to good use, and not just for schoolwork. Perhaps what Kim had learnt from Max was something far more valuable. Patience, encouragement, clarity. It was surprising, and in the best way possible.

“And that concludes today’s lesson,” Kim said finally, once Alix had actually managed to play a little tune on the instrument. “As a thank you for being such a good student, here’s a sticker. Happy Cupid Festival, you little goofball.”

He pushed aside her fringe and stuck a friendship sticker on her forehead, just like he’d done last year. Almost at the same moment, the sounds of torrential rain from outside lessened to near-silence. Looked like those cookies had worked on Mireille after all.

“Well, as a thank you for being a good teacher, here’s _thirty six_ friendship stickers,” Alix said, pulling a roll of sticker paper out of her pocket and thrusting it into his hands. “I mean, it’s not as cool a present as yours, but…”

“Yeah, well it makes sense.” Kim had already started peeling off the stickers and putting them all over his shirt. “My best friend is way cooler than your best friend, so she deserves to get better presents.”

“What? No, you’re wrong. My best friend is _way_ cooler than yours, he’s the coolest ever and even thirty six friendship stickers aren’t enough to show it.”

“Pffffffff, that’s stupid. My best friend is the awesomest person in the universe, while your best friend is a total idiot, and you know it.”

“Well actually, your best friend is the one who’s a total idiot, while mine is surprisingly smart and thoughtful, so…”

_-... --- - .... / --- ..-. / -.-- --- ..- / .- .-. . / .. -.. .. --- - ...!_ the snake tapped out on the wall behind them.

“What did he say?” Kim asked.

“Um… he says you’re still a punk bitch, but he’s gonna miss your stupid antics after school finishes.”

Kim grinned at her, not fooled for a second. “Yeah, okay. And what else does he say?”

“He says that… that you’re a really awesome friend. Like, when you’re not being annoying. Okay, even when you’re annoying! Because you’re fun. And… and no one else in the universe is like that. No one else is as fun to hang out with, or mess around with, or just talk to, or…”

“Wow, your snake really seems to think highly of me, huh?” He winked and ruffled her hair.

“Yeah, I guess he does.”

“You know, Alix, you’ve already told me more than once how awesome you think I am, and how we’re gonna be best friends forever and all of that stuff. I already know you love me. You don’t have to keep being all defensive about it! You don’t need to worry about me getting really full of myself – I’ve got Max for that!”

“No, it’s not that…” She put the instrument aside and curled up with her knees to her chest, wondering how to put it. “It’s just… we’re not really gonna be best friends forever, are we?”

“What? Why not?”

“Because you’ll leave! When the summer holidays start! Either that or something awful will happen, but let’s pretend it won’t – you’ll go home and you’ll stay there for years and years and I won’t get to see you.”

“But that doesn’t mean we won’t still be friends! I’ll call you up like every single day, and… and…”

“That’s not the same, is it? I know that friendships diminish over time and distance in a way that romances don’t, because… because it’s less important… and I know you say it’s not, but…” She trailed off, wondering if she sounded like a whiny broken record. It still worried her, though. Sometimes it seemed that life had doomed her to forever be a third wheel, no matter what it took.

Kim gently put an arm around her. “Then it’s a good thing this isn’t normal friendship, is it? It’s super, extra special friendship. And the reason I gave you the đàn nguyệt this time is so that next year when I probably won’t be able to meet up with you, you’ve still got a cool present to remember me with.”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I need to give you something really special too then…”

“You already did! My phone was a present from you, remember? And I wasn’t lying about calling you up every single day. When the telecommunication lines back home are fixed, I’ll be able to talk to you whenever I want.”

“Good! You’d better!”

He pulled her into a hug and didn’t let go. “You’re so tiny and annoying. I’m gonna miss you.”

It wasn’t often that he hugged her like this. Usually his ridiculously long, heartfelt hugs were reserved for Max, so often that it was a wonder they hadn’t lost their impact. But this felt special, and different, and _good_.

“Hey Kim?”

“Yeah?”

“Promise me you’ll be careful.”

He chuckled. “Wow, I can’t believe you’re the one telling me that. No wonder you’re related to Jalil.”

“I mean it! Fu said the timelines are gonna split again, didn’t he? I don’t want you to… I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, okay?”

She left out what she really wanted to say. _I don’t want you to die._ True, not every bad timeline had resulted in death. But the ones that had turned out fatal still haunted her. Decapitation, snake venom, poisoned chocolates… what could possibly be next? Whatever it was, she couldn’t let it happen to Kim. The thought of losing him, after everything else they’d had to go through…

“You have a point,” he muttered. “I’ll be careful, I promise. I don’t wanna die.”

Oh, so he was thinking it too. Was he afraid? He must be. Everything seemed so much colder all of a sudden, thinking about those stupid cursed timelines full of despair.

“Hey look, it’s snowing!” He let go of her and jumped off the bench, running over to the balcony. She looked over to see that it had indeed started snowing outside – maybe that was the actual reason it was suddenly cold, then. Had Mireille not liked the cookies or something?

She followed him over, looking over the edge of the railings at the raging river down below. “The moat’s really turbulent today, isn’t it?”

“Pffffffffff, I could totally still swim across it. Not that I would! Because I am being careful from now on, of course, so I won’t do that.”

“Good.” It was cold out here, but something was making her cold on the inside too. Like some strange sense of… foreboding. But what? She had a quick check of the timelines, but nothing bad was happening in any of them right now.

“This is so awesome!” Kim was saying, catching snowflakes on the tip of his finger. “I hardly ever get to see snow, and now me and Max’s date is gonna be a snowy one, that’s gonna be so cute…”

Alix didn’t want to dampen his fun, but she had something on her mind, and she had to say it. “Dude, I have a bad feeling about this place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it. I just don’t like it. This… this balcony here.”

The snake hissed, tapping something on the railing.

_\-- . / - --- ---!_

“Oh good, so it’s not just me…”

Kim was staring at her in wonder. “Alix, are you psychic or something? ‘Cause that’s awesome!”

“I’m not psychic! Well except the timeline thing. It just feels bad somehow and I don’t know why. Look, I’m gonna go now, it’s freezing out here…”

“Oh yeah, same. I need to go prepare for my awesome Cupid date with Max. See you later then!” He gave her another quick hug, then ran off.

Huh… this Cupid Festival somehow seemed so bittersweet compared to the other ones. Two years ago the biggest thing she had to worry about was wondering if her friend secretly had a crush on her. Last year she’d been totally focused on getting Kim and Max together, and it had worked. This year though, she’d got the nicest present ever, and reassurance that her best friend cared about her too much to ever drift away, but with the ever-growing fear that she would lose him at some point during the next few months…

 

 

 

Max was already waiting out at the fountain in the snow. He was early, he knew it, but there was just something so enchanting about snow! Though he was not an outdoors person in general, this kind of weather was too precious and fleeting to miss. Sure, the ground was still slippery and wet from the rain earlier, and the snow was not settling, so maybe a lunch picnic here would not be ideal. But at least spending some time out here would be nice.

Thinking back to last year he remembered how it had been so sunny and bright, such a different atmosphere to now. That was back before the assassination drama, before the Bourgeois Empire almost collapsed into chaos, before the danger got so real and tangible that it weighed everyone down. Part of him just wanted to go back. Last year’s Cupid Festival had been a day so magical it was almost impossible to believe it had really happened. But the results were right here – Kim was his sweetheart, and had been now for a whole year!

Right on cue, he saw Kim running over towards him out of the snowy mist. “Max! How dare you get here before me?!”

The next thing he knew, he had been wrapped in one of Kim’s giant ribcage-crushing hugs, though this one seemed much fluffier than usual considering the coats they were wearing.

“I guess I’m just quicker than you sometimes,” Max replied, gladly hugging Kim back. “Remember last year, when I confessed before you too?”

Kim hugged him even tighter. “Of course I remember. That was like, the best day of my life. Anyway, I guess I’ll beat you to giving you a present this year, and it’s not just gonna be a generic Cupid sticker.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little box. For a few seconds Max wondered if the box contained a ring, and if Kim was about to get down on one knee and… well, it wasn’t like Kim hadn’t proposed before already, because he had. But the thought of him doing it properly stopped Max’s heart for a moment in a way that it hadn’t done before – oh boy, if Kim actually really _proposed to him…_

“I know I kinda already gave you a brooch,” Kim continued, his face going red, “but that one didn’t really count, did it? I bought it for Chloé, and then I only actually gave it to you because Alix didn’t want it. It didn’t really mean… well, it didn’t mean what this present’s going to mean.”

He opened the box and pulled out a small heart-shaped object. It was partially red, partially green, and decorated with little heart sequins. Definitely not a ring.

“I made this one myself. With Marinette’s help, though, since I don’t really know how to make stuff. But yeah, it’s green and red because green’s your favourite colour and red’s mine, so I thought it would suit us. And um… this time when I’m giving it to you, I really mean it.”

Kim stepped in and pinned the new brooch to the front of Max’s coat, so gently and delicately, frowning slightly in concentration. Max couldn’t take his eyes off him. Those little flecks of snow settling in his hair, the admiration in those dreamy grey eyes, the visible wisps of breath curling out into the cool winter air, oh, there was just something so _beautiful_ about it all.

“There you go. A new brooch, and an actual Cupid present this time. And I know I say this all the time, but I… I love you, Max. A lot. And every time I say it, I mean it.”

It was true that this was something Max had heard very often, considering how openly affectionate Kim was with him, even long before they’d gotten together. But this time Kim seemed somewhat more flustered, now running a hand through his hair and inadvertently loosening many of the snowflakes resting there.

“And like… I know I’m a hopeless romantic and I’ve had loads of crushes on people, but this one feels different. It always felt different. You… you just feel _right_ , Max, in a way that no one else ever did. You’re always there for me. You’re special. And I don’t wanna use the term ‘true love’ lightly, because I know I take love way more seriously than other people, but…”

He trailed off. Max tried to think of something to say in reply, anything at all! But it would just be impossible to match Kim’s heartfelt speech in words of his own. Instead he laid his shaking hands on the side of Kim’s face, those warm cheeks heating up his frozen fingers, and kissed him softly. It had been exactly a year since their first kiss, and how many had they had in between? Too many to count.

By the time he pulled away his glasses had fogged up too much for him to see. It didn’t matter, though. He simply closed his eyes again and let his forehead rest against Kim’s, still close enough to be sharing breaths. His lips were tingling, and not from the cold.

“I love you too, Kim,” he breathed. “I love your present, and I… I feel the same way about you that you do about me…”

“You do?”

“Yes. I’m well and truly in love with you.”

“Aww, Max, me too…” Kim chuckled slightly. “That’s so cheesy though. I love it.”

“I know. And I have a present for you too.” He stepped back and quickly cleaned his glasses, then pulled the little wrapped gift out of his pocket and gave it to Kim. “Here you go. I feel like perhaps it’s not as heartfelt as the brooch you made for me, but I wanted to give you something that you can use, so…”

Kim had opened the wrapping in no time and was now staring in wonder at the little box in his hand. “Is this some kind of camera?!”

“Yes. I remember how excited you were to buy a disposable camera in my kingdom quite a while ago, so I built a digital one for you while I was working on Markov. It doesn’t run on film, so you can use it for as long as you like, and can transfer the pictures onto your phone to look at them or send them to people.”

“You… you built me a techy camera?”

“Yep!”

For a few seconds Kim just stared in silent amazement, before pulling Max into another giant hug. “That’s the coolest thing ever! A digital camera! And you’re the one who built it, I mean, can you even get any cooler? I’ve got the coolest sweetheart in the entire world!”

Hearing compliments from Kim always made Max’s heart swell with pride and love. “I’m so glad you like it! You’ll send me pictures you take, right?”

“Of course I will! In fact…” He let go and pressed the on switch on the camera. “The first picture I take has gotta be of you. Or wait! It’s gotta be us. Both of us. I don’t know how I’m gonna do that with no one else here, but I’ll find a way.”

“The commoners have a recent trend of doing that actually,” Max said. “Hold the camera at arm’s length with the lens pointing in our direction and hope it works.”

“Okay, I’ll try that… Smile!”

Max put on his best smile as Kim held out the camera with one arm and put the other around him. There was a snap as he took the photo, then they took a look at the preview of the photo on the little screen at the back. It seemed to have worked, even if it did look a bit daft – the two of them were smiling cheerfully at the camera, with the snow around them and the fountain in the background.

“Oh Max, this is perfect! This is wonderful! Thank you so much!”

“Well thank you for being a wonderful friend and sweetheart!”

“This picture is the best. I’m gonna get it printed out and framed. And then when I properly go home, I’ll hang it up on the wall in my bedroom. That way I’ll get to see you every day, even if you’re halfway across the world.”

Max’s heart sank slightly – it was a bittersweet notion. “I’ll do the same. I’m going to miss you a lot, you know.”

Kim, putting his new camera into his coat pocket, sighed. “Yeah, same. I guess some things about getting to go home again are happy, and other things are sad. In fact, since I don’t even know whether or not I’m gonna make it all the way to summer, I want to ask you to do something.”

“Kim–”

“Shhh, you know what Fu said about the timelines, you know you might end up in the bad one. Please listen.”

Thinking about a possible timeline where Kim was not with him was almost too heart-wrenching to contemplate, but it was a possibility all the same. Max nodded.

“Okay. So, whether or not I live or get to go home or whatever, you have to promise me you’ll still hang out with Alix loads. Properly, I mean. Spend time with her and stuff.”

“Of course I will!”

“Good, because she always says how she never had real friends before coming to school, especially not best friends, and I know she’s worried about me. But I’m not her only best friend – _you are too_. I’ll be too far away to do anything, but you won’t. I want you to make sure she’s not gonna spend the rest of her life as the lonely third wheel she’s always been. Even if we all end up in the best timeline, she’s still the only one who’ll actually have suffered through the experience of losing us all, and she’ll need more than just her pet snake for comfort.”

“I promise I’ll be there for her, no matter what,” Max said firmly. “You two will both have countries to run, but I won’t need to do that. I think I’ll actually have time to visit you both plenty.”

“What, even me?”

“Your kingdom may be far away, but didn’t you once say that the very first thing you’d do when returning is build an airport?”

“Huh, I did say that, didn’t I…”

“Exactly.” Max’s own sense of hope and resolve was increasing now, just at the thought of it. “If you do build an airport early in your reign, I’ll be able to visit fairly often. Of course there’s still the issue of cost and fuel and time zones, but we’ll sort that all out. The important thing is that I’ll be able to see you.”

Kim hugged him once more, though this time more gently, and when he pulled away his eyes were shining. “Yeah, that sounds awesome. And I guess I could attend International Alliance events myself rather than sending diplomats, so that would give me even more excuses to see you guys, right?”

“Right. But focus on your country first and foremost. Your people will need your help. And if you’re ever the one who needs help, well… I’ll only be a telephone call away.”

“Jeez, sometimes I wonder if it’s possible for you to get any sweeter, and you still manage to outdo yourself. I love you so much.” Kim took Max’s hands in his own. “Your hands are so cold!”

Max’s face wasn’t cold, that was for certain. “In that case you should probably keep holding onto them… you know, thermodynamic equilibrium and all that…”

“Hmmm…” Kim raised Max’s hands to his lips and kissed the tips of his fingers. “Hey Max? I know we probably should have lunch now, indoors so we don’t freeze, but I’m not in a hurry so, um… can I kiss you again? Please?”

Last year it had been Max who asked for a kiss, and this time Kim had indeed managed to beat him to it. He nodded, holding Kim’s hands a little tighter. “You always can.”

“Aww… Happy Cupid Festival, Max.”

“Happy Cupid Festival, Kim.”

They kissed again, thousands of snowflakes swirling around them in the winter breeze, settling into their hair and clothes only to melt in their shared warmth, and even a few mysterious flower petals seemed to float through. And Max was melting too, his cold hands heating up, and he wanted to make the most of every moment like this he got – aware that with a timeline split on the way between now and summer, every kiss with Kim might be his last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5 chapters to go. Everything about this fic feels bittersweet right now... (though that may be because it's past 2am)


	68. A day in the life of Snek

Chandeliers were inherently malevolent. Imhotep the First, royal cobra to the ruling pharaoh of the Kubdel dynasty, awoke from a nightmare about those evil pieces of architecture and immediately decided that at this year’s spring dance, he wasn’t going anywhere near them, no matter what strange plans he got roped into.

In any case, going back to sleep alone in his enclosure simply wouldn’t do. He slithered up over the mini fence, made his way to the pharaoh-sized bed, and curled up around Alix’s arm.

“Hm? Oh hey buddy, what’s up?” She opened her eyes a fraction and gave him a gentle stroke.

 _-. .. --. .... - -- .- .-. ._ he tapped.

“Aww, that sucks. It’s okay, though. I’ll always protect you. I’m going back to sleep but wake me up if you need anything, yeah?” She kissed the tip of his hood and closed her eyes again.

Much better. Hopefully now he wouldn’t have a nightmare about chandeliers again. He closed his retinas, since he did not have proper eyelids, and went back to sleep.

 

 

The morning was not much different from usual. He woke up earlier than Alix did and stayed wrapped around her arm, absorbing the warmth into his cool scales. This school place always felt so much colder than back home, making him so sleepy whenever he wasn’t stuck to Alix like glue. Luckily she did not mind. In fact, she liked it a lot. Having a venomous snake wrapped around her shoulders at every second of the day was part of her pharaoh image by now. He liked to consider himself her sidekick.

“Morning dude. You okay now?”

Ah, she had woken up. He nodded at her – of course he was always okay with her around, no matter what.

“Awesome. I guess I should probably get up now, but I can’t be bothered so I’m just gonna lie here for a while…”

She was a little like a snake herself sometimes. Remaining motionless, not having the energy to move? Yes, very snakelike. Had she learnt that from him, or was she just like that? From what he knew, all teenagers were a bit like that.

Perhaps at some point he really could ask her. Morse code was a lifesaver – he could actually properly communicate with her now! For years he had wished to be able to speak the way humans did, with so much variety, rather than just this monotonous hissing he was cursed with. There were so many things he always wanted to say to Alix and had no way to do so. But now he could, and it was the best.

And far less boring, too. Being brought up in captivity, he grew up knowing human languages, like French and English and Arabic. On the odd occasion he came across another snake, he never understood what they were saying at all. Were they even speaking? Or just hissing nonsensically? Perhaps he would never know if all queen cobras were as intelligent as him, or if he was the only one.

 

 

Breakfast was the same as always. He did not want to eat anything, since it wasn’t that time of month for him yet, and human food did not look very appealing anyway. It was funny how Alix also had a “time of month” thing that happened, though hers was definitely less pleasant, and seemed to not keep to its monthly schedule very successfully.

“Nino, are you hacking the music for tonight’s spring dance again?”

“No need to hack this time, Marinette. Mendeleiev personally asked me to oversee it this year. I guess she didn’t want a repeat of the chandelier thing from last year, huh?”

“But that was funny…”

No it was not! The snake curled up a little tighter around Alix’s shoulders, hissing instinctively. Chandeliers just still somehow gave him a bad, bad feeling…

 

 

Class was no different. As usual, Lady Caline asked questions that only Markov knew the answer to. As usual, Alix ignored everything and played hangman with Mylène on the corner of a scrap piece of paper. As usual, Nathaniel was clearly drawing instead of writing. As usual, Kim and Max were giving each other cheesy looks while thinking no one was watching.

Nothing interesting ever happened in class anyway. It was always outside class where the fun happened. Like the spring dance! What was going to happen there this year? At least it wasn’t going to be strictly formal now, thanks to the crazy events of last year. Though hopefully no falling chandeliers…

 

 

“This is the boy who gave me his pet cat! He wants to ask you about getting a pet snake!” Marinette was running up the corridor, dragging along a beaming noble by the arm.

“Hi, I’m Wayhem!” the noble said. “Your snake is so cool! Can I stroke him? Can I? Please?”

“Ask him yourself,” Alix replied.

“Ah, okay!” Wayhem looked down at the snake, still with a huge smile. “Can I stroke you?”

He nodded. The noble softly ran his fingers over the scales.

“Wow… this is so cool! Are you venomous?”

He nodded again.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

He shook his head this time. Humans were capable of killing too! Why did they not ask each other that question? Why always snakes? From everything he had ever experienced in his life, humans on the whole seemed much crueller than snakes. Venom had nothing to do with it. After all, he still had annoyingly vivid memories of another timeline, where the guards had discovered him harmlessly residing in the palace, and sliced off his head for it…

Oh yes, he could access the other timelines too. Usually they were either very sad or very boring, sometimes both. And that one timeline where he was beheaded had been rather painful. Sure, it was quicker than dying from venom or poisoned chocolates, but it had _hurt_ , and it had hurt even more to see his human owner having a nightmare about it and being so distraught. At least from now on Alix had promised to protect him as much as possible, which put him at ease. And she had kept that promise. She was very protective.

“Are you done?” she snapped at Wayhem. The snake was thankful – it got kind of annoying when people just endlessly stroked him and did nothing else. At least tell a joke or play rock-paper-scissors or something!

“Yep! Thanks, bye!”

And Wayhem ran off without another word. Perhaps, while not being afraid of the snake, he was afraid of Pharaoh Alix herself, which seemed quite common. Not as much these days as it used to be, but it still happened on occasion. Especially with the nobles.

“I didn’t even know his name was Wayhem, he never told me,” Marinette huffed. “But I’m glad he gave me his cat. I’m sure Plagg is doing very well back home, with… my other cat.”

Other cat? They must be talking about Adrien. People were always using codenames for him, in case of spies overhearing and discovering his whereabouts. But then again, weren’t the spies gone now that Empress Chloé had cut ties with the Agreste Empire? It seemed Alix had the same thought.

“Is your ‘other cat’ ever gonna join you here?” she asked. “You know, now that things are… uh…”

“I don’t think so,” Marinette said, lowering her voice to such a quiet whisper that there was no way anyone else could overhear – not that anyone was around, anyway. “The borders are probably clear for him and everything, he wouldn’t get arrested on sight anymore, but this empire isn’t safe for travel right now anyway! And his father must be so angry, he’ll have sent spies for sure. If any of them see him, he’ll be taken away again and this time they’ll never let him escape. He’s better off staying put.”

“So it’s like house arrest all over for him, just in a different place this time? Ugh…”

“I know…” Marinette sighed. “To be honest, I might just not come back after the spring holidays. I may as well stay there with him. And if the state of this empire gets any worse, especially further towards the borders, then it won’t even be a choice – I won’t be able to come back at all. Risk of bandit attacks and all that. Royal guards aren’t invincible against angry commoners…”

She spoke some more, but the snake had ceased to listen – there was a rather tasty-looking bug crawling along the top of Marinette’s hair. He watched it, trying so very hard not to suddenly pounce. It looked so good! Bugs were always a nice snack. Unlike eating larger creatures, they didn’t take that long to digest. Neither did spiders. He had eaten a lot of those in his life.

“There’s a bug in your hair, by the way.”

“Oh!” Marinette took the bug in her hand and put it in the front pocket on her robes. “How did she get out of there?”

“Marinette… are you telling me you have a _pet bug?”_

“Um, sort of? She never goes away no matter what I do, so I’ve kind of accepted it. I’m thinking she might be my… what’s the word? Guardian animal? You know, like your snake.”

“Oh, right…”

The snake was suddenly very glad indeed that he hadn’t eaten the bug. Imagine killing Marinette’s guardian animal, and therefore indirectly dooming Marinette herself to an upcoming grisly fate! Maybe he should think twice before eating. He did have a bit of a problem with recklessness, much like his human counterpart.

“At this rate there’ll be no one left at school by the summer holidays,” Alix muttered.

“It’s not that I want to leave, because I don’t! I’m just so worried, and it’s so tiring being on edge all the time…”

“Fair enough. I hope you have fun back in Cheng, then. You’ll still keep in touch, right?”

“Of course I will! Cheng has an excellent postal system, and there’s a telephone – well the telecommunication lines have been down recently because of some disruption in the Bourgeois Empire, but it’ll be fixed soon I’m sure – anyway I’ll definitely stay in touch! You’re my friend.”

“Thanks. Maybe I’ll visit someday. We can team up to beat Adrien and Kim at tennis again.”

Marinette giggled. “Oh yes, that was how we first properly met each other, wasn’t it? We’ve definitely got to have that tennis match again one day. I’m looking forward to it! Oh – I have to go pack…”

She waved and ran off. The snake was now mildly horrified – it was only just sinking in that this was the last year at school, the last few months here. How many of these people would he never see again in his life? Chloé, Sabrina, Lila and Adrien were already gone, and now Marinette was leaving too. Within a few months, everyone would be gone. It would be back to a lonely life at the palace.

“I can’t believe her guardian animal is a frickin’ _bug_ ,” Alix whispered at him. Snakes could not shrug, but if he had arms, he would have shrugged at that.

 

 

The spring dance was different to the previous ones. This time, while still officially called “formal”, the atmosphere was more relaxed. Nino was at the music table playing much better tunes than the musicians had been playing last year. Snakes did not have humanlike ears either, but there were still some things they could hear, and that included good music.

“I forgot to properly invite you but you’re coming to my kingdom for the spring holidays, and no this is not optional,” Alix said to Kim, hiding in the corner away from where all the nobles could confront her about the iconic flower petal incident last year.

“I already know that, silly!” Kim poked her on the nose. “It’s a tradition now. I always have to hang out with you in the spring holidays. And considering they start _tomorrow_ , you probably should have asked me sooner.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m ordering you!”

“Whatever. Hey, where’s Max? I have to go dance with him, I promised I would…” He wandered off.

“Tell Max he has to visit at least once!” Alix called after him – then quickly shut up and hid in her corner again from the nobles. The snake was relieved. He didn’t want any nobles asking him about the chandelier thing either, even if they wouldn’t understand a word he said about it.

“Alix, why are you hiding in the corner?”

“Juleka! Shh! Don’t tell anyone!”

Juleka had just walked into view, and now came over looking rather smug. “You don’t want people asking you to throw flower petals at them, do you?”

“Exactly.”

“Can’t you just scare them away? You and that awesome snake of yours?”

He straightened his neck a little – it was always nice to hear compliments from Juleka. That strange, mysterious princess really seemed to like him a lot, and not just in the superficial way that most edgy people did.

“I don’t want people to be scared of me,” Alix said. “A good pharaoh is obeyed because their citizens respect them, not fear them.”

“Glad to see you pay attention in class occasionally.”

“What? No I don’t…”

Juleka looked even more smug. “You know who else pays attention in class? Markov. And you know something about Markov? He has a crush on–”

“The hologram in my sceptre,” Alix said quickly. “I know. The hologram.”

“Hmm. The hologram indeed. Someone else too, but I guess that’s none of my business… oh, except that Master Fu told me at my oracle session that I do actually have gaydar. Proper gaydar, like, supernaturally. Well, more like I can tell when someone isn’t straight. And you know what? I look at Markov, and I don’t sense anything.”

“Are you telling me that Markov is straight?”

“I guess he must be. Though since he’s still developing his emotions and everything, maybe that’ll change.”

“Are you kidding me? So I know like one straight person at this school, and it’s a robot.”

Juleka chuckled. “Our class is an interesting mix, I have to say. I realized it when Max was asking me for love advice about his crush on Kim like almost two years ago. So you’re not their first winggirl.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Sorry, it’s true. You can ask him. And as much as Kim likes to pretend he was mine and Rose’s first wingman, he’s not. Alya was. No wait – my brother was.”

Alix and the snake seemed to have the same thought. “You have a brother?! Since when?”

“Oh sorry, did I not tell you? I guess I forgot.”

Juleka was a very mysterious person who seemed to “forget” a lot of things. No wonder no one really knew much about her at all. Like her hair… were the purple ends natural? She kept them pinned back under her hat so often that sometimes they were invisible. She really was the complete opposite to Rose, and yet those two loved each other so much. Perhaps there was some truth in the “opposites attract” saying after all.

 

It wasn’t until almost the end of the mandatory one-hour attendance period that the snake realized something. He felt strange, very strange – oh! It was a timeline thing! Something was happening in another timeline right now, something important. Ignoring the spring dance entirely, he disappeared into his thoughts to find out what was going on.

The exile timeline. That one where a very grumpy Alix had abdicated and gone off into exile with the snake, abandoning Adrien somewhere along the way with no further thought. But in the winter holidays she had promised to go find him again, and maybe take back her kingdom while she was at it…

There! The snake now understood what was happening. He watched the event within his mind, since it somehow seemed important – the Alix from the other timeline had just found Adrien, finally, after months of searching. And not only that, but Master Fu was there too! What was going on?

 _“Adrien! I finally found you! I’m sorry for leaving like that, I know you didn’t want me to, I hope these last few months haven’t been complete hell…”_ The timeline twin did truly sound sorry, which was strange, considering that she usually just sounded grumpy.

_“Oh… it’s fine…”_

For once, it was Adrien who sounded grumpy. The snake concentrated further to see that they were in some kind of dark, cold tavern, late at night, nothing but flickering candles on the walls lighting up the room, the howling of the wind outside louder than anything else. Perhaps it was still on the steppe somewhere. Wherever it was, it looked very… commoner.

_“Master Fu? What are you doing here with him?!”_

Master Fu was sitting at the same table as Adrien, his turtle at his side looking very odd in a fluffy turtle-size coat. _“I have some important news to give him, news I would have given him at his oracle session if he had been there. It could mean the difference between life and death, so it really couldn’t wait. I set out from school to find him as soon as I could.”_

_“Oh… am I interrupting or something? I’m sorry, I just… I’ve been looking for Adrien for ages, and finally someone said he would be here, so…”_

_“Why were you looking for me?”_ Adrien asked, still grumpy.

_“Because I shouldn’t have abandoned you in the first place! It was mean! And I miss you! And I miss everyone and everything, so I came back, and this time I’m actually gonna help. I promise.”_

Adrien was silent in thought for a few seconds before answering. _“Well thanks for coming back. But I don’t really know how you can help anything. I can never go home, and I hate it out here, and this thing keeps happening where I just keep breaking things when I’m in a bad mood… not on purpose! I’m not destroying things! I just lay one finger on something while having negative thoughts, and it crumbles… watch this…”_

He frowned in concentration and then put his hands around the mug on the table in front of him. Within a few seconds it shattered into fine dust.

_“See? I’m all messed up. The commoners are calling me a sorcerer, a bad omen, things like that. Maybe they’re right. I can never be an imperial prince again, not with dark powers like these.”_

_“Um… this may not be the right thing to say, but that was literally the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in my life, so…”_

Master Fu cleared his throat. _“This is actually what I have come to talk about. Alix, take a seat. If you’re going to help Adrien then you may as well hear all this too.”_

She sat down at the table.

_“Alright. Adrien, your powers are not inherently good or bad. They are simply powers, and it is what you choose to do with them that makes all the difference. There is nothing wrong with you for having powers of destruction. It is your superpower, and you are only just beginning to discover it.”_

Adrien seemed ever so slightly less grumpy now. _“So these aren’t dark powers? They’re… superpowers?”_

_“Yes. An incredibly strong superpower too, and lethal when in the wrong hands. If you want to be able to control your power properly, the wisest course of action is for you to find your guardian animal. Unfortunately, your guardian animal is in a dangerous place right now.”_

_“Where? Is it going to die? Will I die too? What animal is it?”_

_“You must return to school and find Count Wayhem. He can give your guardian animal to you.”_

_“Return to school?”_ Adrien’s face fell. _“But I’m not a royal anymore, and if my father finds out, I don’t know what he’ll do… maybe he’ll lock me up again or something, but in real prison this time…”_

_“It is up to you whether you return or not. But don’t forget – your superpower is extraordinary. I’m sure even locked bars wouldn’t be able to keep you, if that’s where your father would put you.”_

_“You’re right…”_ His voice had a little more resolve in it now. _“If my superpower is destruction, then surely I can escape from anywhere? I suppose that means… that means my father isn’t a threat to me anymore. And – and I can return to school. Right?”_

Fu shrugged. _“Again, it’s your decision.”_

_“Yes, I should go back to school! At least to get my guardian animal, if nothing else, so then I can keep it safe. And maybe I can properly confront my father this time. Though technically speaking, I am a commoner, so I don’t know if I can ever be let back into the imperial court…”_

_“I have some other news too,”_ Fu said. _“The new Empress Chloé of Bourgeois has officially cut ties with the Agreste Empire.”_

_“What?! Chloé’s the empress?!”_

_“Yes. It seems the news has not reached this remote barren area yet. But with her cutting ties, it has made your father very angry. He has lost his biggest ally, and he still wants to conquer the world that hates him so much. An emperor backed into a corner is very likely to lash out, to make irrational decisions. In a way, he is more dangerous now in this unpredictable, weakened state than he has ever been. If anyone can stop him it is you. His son. The one person who may be able to make him see reason.”_

Adrien sighed – not a resigned one, but an angry, exasperated one. _“He won’t see reason! He never has, no matter how much I tried. But I suppose I’ll have to go stop him somehow. Someone has to. I’ll go back to school, I’ll get my guardian animal, then I’ll set my sights on the Agreste Empire and find a way to get it back, perhaps from school itself since that seems a bit safer…”_

_“Good. You must be careful, though. It is a tragedy that the fate of so many people rest on the shoulders of a few teenagers. Your decisions can literally change the world. Choose wisely.”_

_“I… I will.”_ Adrien turned to Alix. _“You’ll come with me, right? Back to school?”_

She nodded. _“Yeah, guess I will. There’s a lot of people I never properly said goodbye to. And then maybe I’ll see if I can get my own country back somehow…”_

_“Thank you. I’m glad you came back.”_

_“You’re just being polite. I know you’re still mad at me.”_

_“Maybe a little…”_ He hugged her. _“But I really am happy that you’re here. Anyway, we should set out tomorrow morning. It’ll take a few weeks to get to school, won’t it? We have to get there before Count Wayhem leaves for summer.”_

 _“Take care,”_ Fu warned. _“The Bourgeois Empire has not fully adjusted to its new leader yet. It is still on the brink of a rebellion, though things are improving. It took a lot of wiles for me to get here, and it may take even more for you to get to school in one piece.”_

 _“Thanks for telling us all this,”_ Adrien said. _“We won’t let you down.”_

_“Good. I’m sure I’ll see you again someday…”_

The snake snapped out of his reverie, back to the spring dance that was occurring right in front of him. Whoa… so Adrien had superpowers too? It seemed to be a common thing amongst those with a royal bloodline. Huh, maybe that was why those people had ancestors who were chosen to be royalty in the first place. And Adrien’s guardian animal was most certainly Plagg, Wayhem’s old pet cat.

“Dude, you just saw all that too, right?” Alix said to him – the real Alix, from this timeline, whose arm he was wrapped around. “You know what this means, don’t you? It means that Fu probably went to visit Adrien in this timeline too – he’s probably in Cheng telling him all this superpower stuff right now! And that means – that means – oh I gotta find Marinette!”

He was not entirely sure what any of this had to do with Marinette, but he did not question it for now. Surely Alix would explain soon.

After questioning several nobles they finally found Marinette outside the hall in the cool night air, already heading back to her dorm.

“Marinette!” Alix called, running up to her. “You can’t go back to Cheng! You have to stay here! It’s important!”

Marinette turned around, confused. “Huh? What? Why?”

“I just saw a thing in another timeline – Fu’s gone to visit Adrien and tell him he’s got superpowers, powerful enough to defeat his evil dad probably, or something like that. And so that must have happened in this timeline too. Which means Adrien is gonna leave Cheng and make his way back here! So if you go back to Cheng, you’ll miss him halfway, and then you said you might get stuck there, but he’ll be here, and oh god I’m explaining this really badly I’m sorry.”

“Um…” Marinette blinked a few times. “You’re saying that Adrien has superpowers, and is going to use them to come back to school and confront his father, so I should stay here? Or at least just go to Dupain for the holidays?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, I see. Thank you for telling me. I’d better do that, then.” She smiled. “I’ve got superpowers too, you know. Maybe I can help him.” With that, she turned and walked away.

So even Marinette had superpowers? Who didn’t at this point??? Maybe everyone secretly did.

“You know, pal,” Alix said to the snake, giving him a stroke, “I get the feeling we just changed the course of history. Do you feel that too?”

Oddly enough, he got what she meant. Something _important_ had just happened, in all the timelines, though it was impossible to describe how or why. Something big was brewing on the horizon. Supposedly the dreaded timeline split could happen at any moment between now and the summer holidays, and it was suddenly seeming closer than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're coming to the final stretch of the fic guys!!
> 
> ...That being said, next chapter will have some light-hearted stupidness. Definitely. But expect the dramaticness to return soon after that.


	69. Another spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every spring holidays in this fic has had ridiculously stupid things happen (*cough cough* chapters 20 and 50 *cough*) so I'm not breaking that tradition, though this one's maybe not quite so bad. Idk. It's like 1AM. Anyways this fic is so nearly finished, and I'm super excited to write the rest of it, and thanks again to everyone who's somehow been managing to keep up! <3

Adrien left Cheng later on the very night that Fu had arrived to tell him of his powers. He had already suspected something like that, considering how objects seemed to break within his grasp whenever he was thinking about his distant father. Now it turned out that Plagg, this cat that Marinette had brought back for him all the way from school, was his guardian animal. He would have to take it with him.

Where to go? Probably school. That way he could meet up with his friends to explain everything, and perhaps get their help, before confronting his father. Now that there had been enough time for the guards at the borders of the Bourgeois Empire to disband, it should be safe enough for him to get through without being captured by them.

The commoners, on the other hand…

Well, he didn’t want to get caught and held for ransom. Perhaps it would be best to disguise himself as one of them, and make the journey the long, commoner way round instead of just taking one of the royal carriages. It would be tedious for sure, but at least he was more likely to make it. And it wouldn’t be the first time he had to escape to school all on his own, without any royal help. He’d done it back during the flu pandemic too.

“Are you sure you’re leaving immediately?” Queen Sabine asked, she and her husband standing at the palace gates with him in the fresh night air. It was already almost daybreak, in fact. The beginnings of spring.

“I want to get to school as soon as possible,” he said. “Before the Bourgeois Empire becomes any more dangerous to travel through.”

“We understand,” King Tom said, putting a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “Please, take care on your journey.”

“It has been wonderful having you here,” Sabine added. “You are like a son to us.”

“No wonder Marinette cares so deeply for you. We do too.”

“You are always welcome here with open arms, any time you need it. Think of us as family.”

“Send Marinette our love.”

Adrien nodded, tears stinging his eyes. He picked up his travel bag, slung it over his shoulder, and began walking down the path away from the palace with Plagg running after him. Turning back a few times, he saw the king and queen waving at him, smiling so gently, and… oh, it hurt. It hurt so much to have to leave them. They didn’t even know who he really was…

No, it was too much. He stopped and ran back. “Wait, I have to tell you something before I go!”

“Of course! What is it?”

He came to a stop in front of them and took a deep breath. “The truth is… my name isn’t really Felix. And I’m not a duke. I am Imperial Prince Adrien, heir to the throne of the Agreste Empire. But… but I’m not like my father! I don’t want to take anyone’s land or hurt anyone. I’ve been hiding here because he’ll put me under house arrest if I go back, but it’s about time I faced him properly. And not everything was a lie. I really am in love with Marinette, and I… I’ve r-really enjoyed my time here with you, and you are like family… and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the t-truth sooner…”

The tears were falling before he could stop them. It was so painful to have to tell these wonderful people that he was the spawn of their enemy, that it was his own family’s fault that the world was so unbalanced right now. Did it hurt them too, to hear this? That the honorary son they had come to know and love turned out to be someone else?

He need not have feared. Within a few seconds, Sabine and Tom had pulled him into a tight group hug.

“Adrien… we suspected it might be you,” Sabine said. “But we know that you’re not like your father. Marinette loves you, and we trust her to know for herself what is right and wrong. You don’t need to worry about us. We love you all the same.”

“We believe in you,” Tom said. “We know you’ll do the right thing. It shouldn’t have to be down to you to fix your father’s mistakes, but just know that if you ever need any help or support, with anything at all, we are right here.”

“Your safety is important. We don’t mind that you didn’t tell us sooner, alright? It is perfectly understandable. And you must take care of yourself. You are a good person.”

Adrien just hugged them back, tears rolling down his cheeks. This was the real family he had always wanted, the kind of family he’d dreamed of having for years and years. Not the messy, broken one that he came from. Everyone deserved a family like this one.

After what seemed like forever he finally let go, aware that the sky was gradually lightening up as time moved on.

“Thank you,” he said to them, his voice breaking slightly. “Thank you for everything. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Adrien! And good luck!”

This time when he walked away, it was for good. He picked Plagg up in his arms and walked as fast as his legs could carry him, almost breaking into a run, otherwise he would be tempted to stay here forever.

The journey ahead was not going to be easy. In a way, getting to school itself would probably be the easiest part. He could take public carriages, trains, anything quick and cheap he could get his hands on. But after reaching school, that would be tricky. Returning to his education was one thing. But if his father sent guards to capture him again? That would be entirely another.

One memory was putting his mind at ease: his oracle session way back in first year. He had asked Fu if he would be free from his father’s control by the time he finished his three years of school. Back then he hadn’t known quite how crazy and dangerous life was going to get for him, only wishing to be able to attend school clubs without his father’s interference and be friends with nobles and commoners.

But Fu’s answer had been _yes_.

By the time the summer holidays started, Adrien would truly be free. It was something to look forward to. Of course, being “free” was not necessarily a good thing. After all, if he died somewhere along the way then technically speaking, he would have his freedom from his father that way too.

Hopefully that wouldn’t happen, though… right?

 

 

 

The spring holidays began, and this time when many students left the school, they left for good. A huge chunk of the nobility had ordered large carriages to be able to carry their many possessions back home, leading to odd traffic jams, and Mireille’s relapse back into bad weather did not help. All in all, it was not a good omen.

Kim returned to Alix’s kingdom just as he had done the previous spring holidays. As much as he had said that home was wherever Max was, this place was starting to feel a little like home too. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before he got to visit again.

Alya took Nino with her to her own kingdom this time, her island home far across the distant ocean, wondering if this might be the last time she had the opportunity to show him her homeland. Marinette returned to Dupain, far away from her parents and her sweetheart. Max and Markov went back to Kanté, though they promised to visit with trade shipments soon. Markov even pestered Max enough to allow him to stay with Kim after visiting the first time, insisting that he hadn’t got to spend as much time with him as the other two, and he wouldn’t be needed back home for royalty business anyway considering that he was a robot and not a human prince.

One difference this time that Kim noticed immediately was that the national stadium was hosting some kind of massive sports competition, like the ones that used to happen in ancient Greece. Athletes from all over the world were participating, and Kim itched to see it – but the event was going to start on the very day he would go back to school! What kind of bad luck was that?

At least he was invited to go on a tour of the sports facilities one afternoon, though he guessed that might have been because Alix, Jalil, and several servants had to listen to him loudly complaining about how unfair it all was and wanted him to shut up. Everything in and around the stadium was so weirdly high tech, even more than usual for this advanced country. Since the weather was so hot, at the end Kim was allowed to take a swim in the giant swimming pool that would be used for the races, currently only available for use of royalty and nobility.

It had been a long time since Kim had been swimming, considering there was no swimming pool at school. Back home it had just been him and the servants messing around in small rivers and things, nothing special. The water here, on the other hand, was clear, sparkling, and gave off the aroma of minerals. And plus, people here didn’t swim in their normal sporty clothes – they had specially made swimming outfits just for the occasion! Kim was certain he’d look very good in one of those, and made a mental note to buy one at some point.

He did a few laps of the pool but quickly stopped when he realized he’d lost so much practice that he wasn’t very quick anymore – it was making him self-conscious, what with all the guards right there having nothing else to do but watch him fail.

Not to mention, _she_ was there for some reason too, on the other side of the pool, making much quicker progress… That foreign princess from the Peace Ball and the conferences. Kim still couldn’t remember her name, but he hadn’t forgotten that freckly face. It made her easy to recognize even in a swimming costume and weird rubbery cap, from all the way over here.

She was going so fast! How did she do that? Did she have a swimming pool back at her palace to practise in? And what was she doing here in this country anyway? Kim clambered out of the pool and left to go dry off, wondering if she had been judging him for his sub-standard swimming skills.

 

 

That evening was so ridiculously warm, even the air conditioning wasn’t enough. Kim had opened the windows as far as they would go, turned on the ceiling fan to its highest speed, and even pulled off his shirt and just chucked it into the corner of the room before lying on the bed hugging an ice pack that he’d asked the kitchen staff to lend him.

Supposedly the Agreste Empire’s insistence on burning coal for all their tech was enough to change the climate itself, resulting in more extreme temperatures. Usually something like that would sound far-fetched. But right now? Kim could believe it.

The ice had already all melted away when there was a knock at the door. Kim threw the useless ice pack aside too, pulled himself to his feet, then went to answer. He had no idea who could possibly have the energy to visit him on such a sweltering evening–

Oh, it was Max!

“Hi Max!” Kim said, beaming, his spirits lifting at lightspeed. Max had said he would come to visit, and now he had! This would be awesome!

About to hug Max like he always did, he stopped when he saw his awestruck face.

“Uh… Max? You okay?”

Max had turned aside now, his face going a deeper red than Kim had ever seen it. “Yes… it’s nothing…”

Why was he so flustered? And why were his eyes momentarily flicking over to look at…

Ohhh. Of course. Kim had forgotten that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

His own face was heating up now. To think that he had tried to do this over the past holidays too, and now he only achieved it by accident!

“So,” Kim said, trying to put on a totally normal voice and expression despite wanting to burst into laughter, “wanna hang out?”

Max nodded, a hand over his nose. Was that a nosebleed again? Just like two years ago? Wow, how had Kim not realized that Max liked him sooner? In hindsight, it was incredibly obvious.

He put an arm around Max and led him into the room, closing the door behind them. “You need a tissue or something? Tissues stop nosebleeds, right?” He handed Max a tissue and then sat beside him on the bed. “You’re so cute when you’re all flustered.”

Max looked down with the tissue held to his face, seemingly trying to hide a smile. It was so sweet! Kim was tempted to hug him now, but was seriously wondering if the shock might kill Max, so he held back.

“I’m so glad you’re here to visit,” Kim continued, trying to ignore the fact that he was getting flustered too. He’d never been totally shirtless in front of anyone for this long. “I mean, who else is gonna appreciate all _this?_ It’s so fun having a sweetheart to impress, you know. Maybe I should take off my shirt in front of you more often. Well maybe not, if it always gives you a nosebleed, but maybe with warning then? Oh but then you wouldn’t be so cute about it…”

Aware that he was babbling away rather stupidly, he trailed off. Should he put his shirt back on? It would get rid of the awkwardness, for sure. But then again, it really did boost his ego to see Max getting more and more flushed with every passing second, the way his rather dreamy gaze kept dropping down to Kim’s chest as much as he tried to hide it, the tissue scrunched up so tight within his grasp, and somehow it was so very attractive too…

Max’s nose had stopped bleeding now, but neither of them spoke. They simply sat together in the lazy spring heat, glancing at each other, no one willing to break the silence. It was peaceful, sure, but… something else too. The air itself seemed heavy, so heavy you could cut it with a knife, so heavy it was hard to move, like swimming through treacle. Somehow it reminded Kim of this very day exactly two years ago, when he had been at that snake pond, and everything was idyllic and quiet and life itself was at a standstill…

Max finally cleared his throat. “Um, Kim? How about… some… scientific research…?”

Kim had already been thinking about, well, “scientific research”, as Max tended to put it. It was the only way this could end, wasn’t it?

“I mean actual science,” Max clarified, adjusting his glasses.

Actual science? Kim deflated a little – he knew why his heart was bursting through his chest, and it was because right now all he wanted was to hold Max tight and kiss him and forget about everything else in the world.

“Yes, actual science…” Max’s voice had gone much quieter, much wispier, and he slowly took off his glasses and put them aside as he spoke. “I need to know, scientifically, how it’s possible for you to be so… h-hot… so um… I suppose you’ll have to keep your shirt off, and I’ll have to make out with you… for science…”

Oh Max, what a way of putting it. Kim tried to say something in reply, but it was so hard to speak when Max had given up on being subtle, eyes wandering up and down a little more obviously (though without his glasses on maybe he just couldn’t actually see anything). Of course Kim had known that Max considered him hot – it was true! He was hot, and he knew it! Things had never felt quite like _this_ , though, quite so… magnetic…

Again there was a silence, and Kim just nodded, not wanting to break it. He was sweating, and he wasn’t sure whether that was from the heat, or from the way the lovestruck expression on Max’s face was twisting his insides.

Max raised a shaky hand and, so tentatively, put it right over where Kim’s speeding heart was. The contact sent out a sudden rush of adrenaline, like a burst of static electricity. Honestly, to think that Max called kissing _science_ when what it really felt like was magic…

“Is it getting hot in here, or is it just _you?”_ Max said, sliding his arms up around Kim’s neck.

Kim was too surprised at the fact that Max had used a really lame pick-up line on him to even reply for a few seconds. Eventually he managed to say, “Both… it is pretty hot in here…”

“Well,” Max said, leaning in temptingly close, “considering you turned on the air con in here but kept the windows open so the hot air can still get in, that’s no surprise.”

“Um… am I supposed to keep the windows closed then?”

Max chuckled, not saying anything more. In any case, their faces were so close now that Kim didn’t want to think about anything serious. After what seemed like forever Max did indeed kiss him, pushing him down on the bed before finally leaning in and pressing their lips together and – oh, how was this so much more satisfying than usual? Kim put his arms around Max, clinging to the fabric of his shirt, pulling him in close, shivering a little and not from cold, but from the way Max was certainly making the most of Kim not having a shirt on…

“Kim, I have a question for you.”

Kim opened his eyes again, sure his hair was completely ruined now, to see that Max had a rather smug smile on his face. Oh jeez, what was he going to ask?

“On a scale of 1 to pillows, how do I compare?”

Pillows?!

Kim burst into laughter before he could stop himself. “Max, oh my gosh, you can’t just… you can’t just bring up the…”

“Well why not?” Max was grinning. “I want to know if I’m better at kissing than your… ahem… ex.”

“I don’t have an ex!” _Not in this timeline anyway,_ he added silently.

“Oh really? Because you know… you did seem v-e-r-y romantically involved with pillows a while ago…”

“Well… well what about you, huh? How do I rate on a scale of 1 to robots?”

“Hey, that’s cheating, you can’t–”

“Or even better,” Kim continued, “how do I rate on a scale of 1 to Markov? Does Markov even know that he was technically your first kiss?”

“He wasn’t sentient yet!” Max said quickly, his face going magenta. “That doesn’t count. It would be like kissing a lump of metal. So don’t tell him…”

“Aw, but imagine his reaction! He’d find it so funny, I bet. Because it is funny. It’s hilarious.”

“Kim!”

“Well it is!”

“If you tell him, I’ll tell him about you and the pillows.”

“Wait, no! Don’t do that! He already loves making fun of me, he’ll get really annoying if you tell him…”

“Oh, but it’s so tempting…”

For a while they just carried on ridiculously teasing each other over pillows and robots, and even when they got back to the “scientific research” that they were meant to be doing, both of them just kept breaking off into laughter every few seconds. It occurred to Kim that one thing hadn’t changed after Max had become his sweetheart – Max was still his best friend, too. They could still laugh and joke around the way they did before, and the relationship between them did nothing to lessen that. It was the best.

 

 

Off in another part of the palace, Alix made sure to tell the servants not to go fetch Kim and Max for dinner. Those two were probably having some mushy date or something and wouldn’t want anyone walking in on them.

She went and knocked on Kim’s door. “Guys? Dinner’s ready in the main hall, if you want. Or just carrying on making out or whatever.”

After a few seconds she heard a reply. “Um… that’s okay, you go ahead! We’re uh… well there’s snacks in here…”

Ew, so they were kissing after all. She’d guessed they were – they didn’t usually leave her out when hanging out together unless they were being overly romantic. Didn’t they ever get bored of that? Apparently not.

“Fine, see you later,” she called, then walked off.

It kind of reminded her of something, actually. This had happened in the other timelines too, in the spring holidays pretty much _exactly_ two years ago – though of course it wasn’t with Max that time. Kim being too busy locked in his room kissing his sweetheart to bother getting dinner until late, like the idiot he was, and in fact if periods weren’t things that existed then there would have been more than just kissing going on that time–

But wait.

Dudes didn’t have periods, did they? Well, unless they were like Nino, but Kim and Max weren’t. And Kim, despite being better these days, was still the most reckless person she knew, and this situation just seemed too oddly familiar to be coincidental, too similar to those other timelines two years ago, where things had happened.

Alix stopped dead in her tracks. Were those two…? Nah, no way. Kim wasn’t _that_ reckless. But then again, in this situation it wouldn’t exactly count as recklessness, would it?

Before she could flip out, she very firmly told herself that it was none of her business what they were up to, and it didn’t matter anyway. She repeated it over and over in her brain as she carried on walking down the corridor so fast the guards were frowning at her in concern, it was none of her business, it was none of her business, it was n–

“Alix! There you are!”

She had turned the corner so fast she almost walked directly into Markov. His eyes lit up with star shapes and he zoomed up to her to bop her gently on the forehead.

“I’m so excited to be staying here for the rest of the holidays, by myself this time! And I actually got to experience the plane journey too, since this time Max did not put me on power-saving mode, and it was so wonderful! I enjoy air travel a lot! Doesn’t the earth look magnificent from up there? Anyway, what’s up with you?”

She finger-gunned at him, not really having paid attention to anything he just said. “Um, nothing! It’s all good!”

“Uh… are you okay?”

“Haha yeah, I’m acesome – AWESOME, I’m – ace – awes – awesome – _fuck_ –”

“You are most certainly acting strange,” Markov remarked. “But dinner is ready, so come on, let’s go. I can interrogate you while you’re eating instead!”

He picked up her hand in his little robot fingers and pulled her along towards the dining hall – oh, there was no way that nosy robot was getting anything out of her, no matter what!

 

 

After dinner she sat in the snake enclosure, polishing her precious pet’s scales. Giving Markov the silent treatment had turned out to be the best idea, not to mention absolutely hilarious. How was that robot more fun to hang out with than most humans she knew? Even if it was a bit weird that his systems still “overheated” a lot around her, and she was fairly certain that wasn’t anything to do with the hologram even if he said it was…

There was a knock on the door, and she called for whoever it was to come in, since she couldn’t be bothered to move right now. Markov still couldn’t open doors by himself, but he could always ask the servants to help him.

“Hey Alix, what are you up to? Max just left and I’m bored, can we play Monopoly?”

Oh crap, that wasn’t Markov – it was Kim! And he had _vacuum cleaner marks_ all over his neck…

Well, whatever. No big deal. None of her business.

_Okay Alix, just be cool, be cool,_ she told herself, then cleared her throat and spoke.

“Did you guys fuck?”

No – oh for god’s sake, why couldn’t she just keep her mouth shut for once – !

Kim, who was just hopping over the fence to join her in the snake enclosure, looked bewildered. “Wait, what?! You mean like… wait, can two dudes actually do that?”

“Well I don’t know, shouldn’t you know that better than me?”

“I have no idea, I never even knew dudes could _like_ dudes until school! Why don’t you ask Max?”

“Ew, no, why don’t _you_ ask him?”

Kim blushed, crossing his arms. “Or I could just not do that. This time I’m staying a bottle of extra virgin olive oil for life, thanks.”

“What, really? Dude, you don’t need to let the other timelines get to you. You’re not that stupid anymore, Max actually likes you, you can do what you want.”

“I don’t mean like that. It’s just… the older I get, the more I feel like some little kid.” He was fiddling around with the sand on the ground. “In a few months I’m gonna be crowned king and be expected to rule a country. And maybe I’m ready, but I just don’t _feel_ ready, you know? For anything. Including… well… I guess I’m a bit like you most of the time. Maybe if Max took his shirt off I might change my mind, since the only other time I did was seeing a hot chick I already liked in a sports bra, but right now I just… don’t…”

He glanced at her and suddenly clapped his hands over his mouth, blushing again. She had to resist the urge to laugh.

“Oh, so you finally noticed I’m wearing that dreaded sports bra?” she teased. “Took you long enough!”

He put his hands back down, grinning. “I’m immune to it now.”

“Good, ‘cause it’s boiling hot today and I’m not putting on another layer. So then earlier with Max, what were you two actually doing?”

Kim blushed once more, running a hand through his hair. “Oh, just kissing… and also I may have conveniently forgot to put on a shirt…”

She laughed, shaking her head. “You really have a thing for taking off your shirt, don’t you?”

“Well apparently so do you!” He picked up a handful of sand and threw it at her, grinning.

“Hey!” She threw a handful right back at him, which he quickly tried to brush off.

“Ugh, some of that went down my shirt, you little gremlin…”

“Well then why don’t you take it off? Oh right, because your precious Maxy isn’t here for you to show off at–”

“Oh come here you! It’s on!”

The next thing she knew, it had escalated into a full-on sand fight. The snake joined in too, flinging sand around with its tail, hissing in a stuttering way as if it was laughing. There was so much sand in her hair it would take forever to get out, and an annoying amount grinding away at her teeth, but she didn’t even care – this was _fun_.

And that was the thing, really. Sure, she could have a sand fight with someone else, but it wouldn’t feel the same. Kim didn’t use her small size as an excuse to hold back. Anyone else would be too scared of incurring her wrath, even people she was friendly with. But Kim had no fear. Just like her, really. In a way it was no wonder they’d ended up best friends. It wasn’t long until the summer holidays, when she would have to say goodbye to him for who knew how long, so every moment like this was worth it.

Or just in case something terrible happened, and she never saw him again at all… she had to make the most of it.


	70. Calm before the storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof this chapter is a DOOZY!! From now on no more silliness, it's time to get down to business. We're in the endgame now. Are you prepared? >:D
> 
> (Oh btw a recent spoilery fish is in this chapter but like, not a huge spoiler I guess)

Princess Alya stood at the docks with Nino, knowing that her decision right here, right now, might change things forever.

“Are you sure you want to go back to school right now?” her mother asked her, glancing warily at the porters carrying the luggage aboard the ship. “The breakdown in order back in Europe recently has caused an increase in piracy, or so our reports say. The new airport will be ready in only a month, so couldn’t you just wait for that and then fly across the ocean? It would be safer.”

That much was true. But there was so little time left at school anyway, waiting an entire month wouldn’t be worth it when she could just leave now and make it back in time for lessons to start again. Not to mention, she knew from what Marinette had told her that Adrien was on his way back to school. She wanted to be there for him if possible. He would need the support of his friends if he truly was preparing to take on his father.

And there was also the matter of protecting Kim…

Of course, now that his country was part of the International Alliance, the likelihood of more assassination attempts was much lower. But according to his oracle session, there was going to be another timeline split, and one that would have bad consequences. If Alya couldn’t go back and protect him, and something bad happened, would that make it her fault?

“I’m sorry, maman,” she said, stepping forward to give Marlena a hug. “My mind is made up. There are things that I need to do at school, and waiting isn’t an option. I have to go back.”

“Fair enough. Take care, Alya.”

Alya nodded, then bent down to hug her sisters. “You two behave yourselves, alright? No mischief.”

They giggled, not paying any attention to her words whatsoever. Lucky them, still young enough to be carefree and blissfully unaware of the state of the world around them. She rolled her eyes and stood back up, turning to Nino now.

“Are you sure you want to come with me? You’re free to wait here until the airport is ready, you know. No one will mind if you come back to school late.”

Nino put a hand on her shoulder. “Alya, we’re in this together. I’m going with you.”

That was exactly what she had expected from him, and it brought a smile to her face. Nino was always there for her, wasn’t he? “Thanks, babe.”

“Before you leave,” Marlena said, “I have something to give you. Here.” She took a necklace out of her purse and put it into Alya’s hand. “If you have any trouble on your journey, press the button on it for help.”

Alya took a closer look at the necklace. It was orange, in the shape of a little tail, and had a button at the centre. “What is this? Where is it from?”

“A certain prince once visited and told me to give this to you when times got tough. Let’s just say… you did a favour for a member of his family a few years ago. This is a thanks.”

Really? Alya had helped out a lot of people over the years. How was she supposed to know exactly who this was from? “What will it do?”

“I don’t know. But hopefully your journey will be uneventful and you won’t have to use it.”

Yes, hopefully. Alya had sailed the Atlantic many times with no issue. Sure, pirates occasionally showed up, but nothing that a few warning cannon shots couldn’t dispel. All the same, it would be better to be more careful this time. Chloé had supposedly reduced funding to her empire’s navy, and this time the seas would be relatively unprotected and rife with banditry.

“Thank you,” she said. “We’ll be fine, I’m sure. I’ll see you again in the summer. I can fly back by aeroplane this time!”

“I look forward to seeing you again!”

They shared one last hug, then Alya took Nino’s hand and together they climbed aboard the ship, ready to set sail back to Bourgeois, back to their school, for the last time.

 

 

 

 

Kim was surprised to get a knock on his door quite early one morning. Who could that even be? Alix never woke up that early, Max was unlikely to visit again with trade shipments so soon, Markov’s knocks sounded more mechanical, Jalil tended to avoid Kim as much as he could these days…

Still in his pyjamas, he opened the door to see a familiar freckled face looking up at him. Oh – it was that foreign princess, the one who’d been at the peace conferences and the swimming pool! What was she doing here? The guards near the door seemed just as bewildered, judging by their curious expressions.

“Good morning, Prince Kim,” she said, curtseying slightly, only a little shorter than him. “They tell me you always wake up early so um… I thought I’d say hello. I mean, my family is on a visit and we were going to be officially introduced later in the day, but we’ve already met so that’s a bit pointless, so… um… can I come in?”

Kim nodded and allowed her inside, closing the door. He was half-tempted to ask what her name was, but would that seem rude? After all, she had remembered his name just fine. It would be embarrassing to admit he’d forgotten.

The princess ran a hand through her shockingly red fringe, so red it would put Prince Nathaniel’s hair to shame, and turned to face him with a smile. “I saw you at the pool the other day. Do you like swimming?”

Drat, she was probably silently judging him for being a bad swimmer, wasn’t she? Kim just nodded, not saying anything.

“Oh, that’s cool! I love swimming. I’m here for the International Games actually. I came a few weeks early to get in some practice before the events begin.”

Wait… so she was…

“You’re participating in the International Games?!” Kim asked. “Like, a proper athlete and everything?”

The princess was blushing a little, looking away and fiddling with her bangles. “Yeah! My island kingdom is well-known for swimmers, and my parents always encouraged me to get into it, so I did.”

“That is so cool.”

“Oh, thank you…”

She was blushing even more now, the freckles on her face really standing out. Kim hadn’t noticed before, but she had freckles all over her neck and shoulders too. The rather snazzy blue dress she was wearing didn’t cover them at all.

And yes, she looked like the kind of athletes Kim had always looked up to as a kid. Visibly big and strong, broad shoulders and muscled arms. A pang of jealousy hit him – if he hadn’t been at school these past few years, if he’d grown up in a diplomatic kingdom like all of these ones, would he too have been a good enough athlete to participate in international events? He had always been a great runner. He just hadn’t got the chance to prove himself.

“So, um…” The princess was smiling brightly, still looking as shy as ever. “I know you like sports too, don’t you?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m an athlete too. I mean, I’m not participating in any events or anything, but I do like sports…” He trailed off, knowing everything he said sounded lame compared to a freaking swimmer champion princess.

“Well, would you like to come watch my event?”

“I wish I could, but I’ll be back at school. Sorry.”

Her face fell slightly. “Oh, right… Wait, how much longer do your holidays last?”

“Two weeks.”

She was silent for a few seconds, pondering something. Then she blushed again. “Um… Prince Kim? May I ask you something?”

“Yeah, of course. But you can just call me Kim.”

“Ah, okay! Kim. And you can just call me Ondine, by the way.”

Oh yes – that was her name! Thank goodness she’d said it, since it was getting a bit too weird to ask now.

“So…” She looked down at her feet with those sea green eyes of hers. “This is a bit weird, but I wanted some advice. There’s this boy I’ve had a crush on for a while and I don’t know what to do…”

Usually Kim would not trust himself to be able to give advice, considering how reckless and ridiculous he knew he could be. But this? This was something he could handle. Royalty who were fully home-tutored usually didn’t get the exposure to romance that commoners did, and so didn’t pick up the necessary skills to make things work. School, however, had taught Kim all he needed to know about it. Maybe Ondine had guessed that, and that was why she was asking him.

“Who is this guy?” Kim asked. “Is he a commoner or something?”

“No, he’s a prince.”

“Oh, well then that’s easy. Just ask him out.”

“Ask him… out?”

“Yeah, like the commoners do. Ask him if he wants to go into the city with you on a date, or watch you swim, or go out to dinner or something. Or just straight-up ask him to be your sweetheart.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh… no, not really. But if you really do love him, then you may as well tell him, right? Otherwise he might never know.”

“Yeah,” Ondine sighed, looking wistful. “Otherwise he might never know…”

“People can be super oblivious to love and stuff, trust me. You could be flirting loads and they might not even notice. So just be clear.”

“Mm…”

“And even if he’s not into you, you’ll find some other cute prince for sure.”

Giving advice like this was strangely fun. Perhaps it was just another way of showing off, really. Over these years Kim had had his fair share of romantic shenanigans, so in a way, he really did know what he was talking about for once. He had been into people who didn’t love him back, and he’d still managed to get himself a cute prince for a sweetheart…

Ondine cleared her throat. “Kim, thank you for your advice.”

“Hey, no problem.”

“I’m just going to go for it and ask.”

“That’s the spirit!”

“Okay…” She took a deep breath. “Prince Kim… I mean, K-Kim… I like you a lot, and um, do you want to be my sweetheart?”

What?

Kim was not sure he had heard right. But Ondine was staring hard at the ground, her face bright red, her arms folded in on herself protectively…

Well okay, he probably should have seen this coming. She had definitely been checking him out back at the peace conference, he knew that. And now suddenly showing up to his room, alone, blushing all the time, asking about romance? Come to think of it, this should not be surprising.

Kim ran a hand through his hair. “Um… look… that’s really sweet. And probably took a lot of guts to ask. And you’re pretty cool and everything. But… well, the truth is…”

“It’s Max, isn’t it?” Ondine asked quickly, putting a hasty smile on her face, though the way she sniffed and wiped a sleeve across her face betrayed her true feelings.

Kim was unsure whether or not to tell her. He and Max still tended to keep their relationship on the down-low, at least outside of school. The dreaded timeline split still hadn’t happened yet and he did not want to risk anything. Even if Ondine did seem to be a genuinely sweet person, someone who wouldn’t judge, someone who could keep a secret.

He made up his mind. “It’s not that. It’s just that, like, I don’t really know you very well. You seem cool and everything, you really do! But we’ve only met about twice, and I barely know anything about you at all…”

This was seeming oddly familiar. What was it?

Oh yes, Chloé…

Back during the very first days of school, Kim had given her a courting gift and hoped she would be his sweetheart. She had turned him down point blank and reminded him that he didn’t know her anywhere near well enough to do such a thing. He had never expected to be in the same situation again, this time on the receiving end.

But he was determined not to be rude about it. He knew how much the rejection hurt, and he didn’t want Ondine to feel the humiliation he felt back then.

“So it’s not personal,” he continued, trying to put a smile on his own face too, to lift her spirits. “You’re awesome and everything. But we haven’t spoken much, ever, so how do you know you really like me? What if I’d turned out to be a jerk? I mean, I’m not! But…”

“I know you’re not a jerk,” Ondine said quietly. “The reason I like you is because I saw your TV interview last year. You seem like such a… a hero. But I understand what you’re saying.” She sniffed again. “At least you still have two weeks here left, so in that case… would you like to get to know me better?”

Aware that she was probably still hitting on him, Kim amended his earlier decision slightly. “Listen, I’m gonna tell you a secret, and you can’t tell anyone. Truth is, I have a sweetheart already. So it’s better for you to move on.”

She nodded. “You’re right…”

“But that being said, I meant what I said about you being awesome. So yeah, I would like to get to know you better. We can be friends, right?” He held out his hand for a fist bump. Ondine smiled up at him, eyes sparkling with tears, and gently bumped her fist on his.

“That would be nice. Thank you, Kim.”

“No problem, new friend.”

“I think… I think I’ll go now…”

“Oh, well I’ll see you later!”

She turned and left. As soon as she was gone Kim let out a sigh of relief – he had just _turned someone down_. Rejected someone. Of course he’d done it before, with the occasional servant asking him out as a dare across the years, and that one time Marinette did it when they were much younger. But it was never serious!

Hopefully Ondine was okay…

Huh, was this what Alix had felt like way back when she had turned Kim down? Because in that case he got why she hadn’t done that in the other timelines. Rejecting someone felt _bad_. And he barely even knew Ondine! What would it have been like if they were already good friends…?

 

 

Later in the day he was indeed “officially introduced” to Ondine and her family, though there really was no point. Her eyes were a little red – had she been crying? She at least seemed to be very good at hiding it, putting on a sunny smile and acting cheerful. Predictably, her mood went up even further when she met Markov, who she had never properly spoken to before. Everyone always seemed to love that little robot no matter what.

“Would you like me to show you around?” Markov asked her as soon as the official meeting was over and everyone was allowed to disperse. “I have memorized the entire layout of the palace along with its history, and would love to have a go at being a tour guide!”

“Yes please!” Ondine said, genuine excitement in her eyes.

“Well then, follow me!”

Those two wandered off together. Kim grinned, turning to Alix. “You’ll never believe what Ondine did earlier.”

“Lemme guess,” Alix said. “She asked you out.”

“Wh… what? How did you know? Is this a stupid timeline thing again?”

“Yeah. In one of the other timelines – and only _one_ – you turned up at my room earlier, telling me all about how some cute swimmer princess asked you out and you’ve kind of got a new sweetheart. So I guessed it must have happened this time too, except you turned her down.”

“Well of course I turned her down!” Kim clenched his fists. “Where’s the Kim that didn’t? Can I fight him?”

“Dude, how many times do I have to tell you that you can’t fight your timeline twins?! Anyway, it was the Kim from the poison chocolates timeline, so no, he’s not two-timing anyone.”

Just hearing the words _poison chocolates_ sent a shiver down his spine. “I still wanna fight him.”

“But why?”

“Because what about Max?”

“We are talking about the _poison chocolates timeline_ here. You know, the one with the poison. The poison in the chocolates. That poison. The one where Max…”

The one where Max died, well over a year ago now. It had been so long and yet it was still terrifying to think about.

“But…” Kim crossed his arms. “Isn’t the other Kim still sad, though?”

“Yeah, duh! But he can’t be sad forever. Max would hate that. So I guess he’s moving on.”

“Well I’m still gonna call up Max and tell him about this…”

“And he’d probably just say the same thing as me. Move on and make the most of your life. Have you ever had anyone close to you who’s died?”

Kim shook his head. “I guess there was my grandfather that one time, but I didn’t really know him…”

“Yeah, exactly. Trust the other Kim, okay? He still loves Max. But that’s impossible now, so he loves Ondine too. And that’s okay.”

“Hmm… I guess…”

“That’s the thing about us being royalty, isn’t it?” Alix mused, stroking her pet snake absent-mindedly. “It’s all about making the most of whatever stupid circumstances we’re in. It’s like being on a permanent balancing beam. And commoners don’t really have that so much. I do sometimes wonder, if we’d been commoners instead, if…”

She trailed off, looking away.

“If what?” Kim asked.

“Well.. um… it’s like how you ended up with Ondine in another timeline. If we’d have been commoners, in some other universe, and not have to think about rules or being sensible or whatever, in totally different circumstances… I sometimes get the feeling that like… us two might have worked out, you know?”

“Aren’t you aro?”

“Yeah, but we might have reached a balance…”

“Alix, you’re being really weirdly philosophical today.”

She whacked him on the arm with her sceptre. “Well someone has to be! What if the timelines split suddenly, and the bad ending happens, and I never get to say half this stuff? I’ve stopped caring if it makes me sound like a mushy weirdo at this point and you should too!”

Oh, that stupid timeline split. The thought of it kept him on edge, so anxious it was like he could never get a true moment of rest. “How are the other timelines?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to know. But he needn’t have worried.

“Surprisingly good. Like, all of them. I guess we just make the most of it no matter what bad stuff happens, right? The poison chocolates timeline has us moving on, and you’ve got Ondine too… in the exile one me and Adrien are on the way back to school to take back the throne… in the house arrest one you’ve stopped being scared of me because I got a bit nicer–”

“What?”

“Ignore that one, that one’s not important,” she said quickly. “But anyway, things are good. Though maybe that’s bad. Like the calm before the storm.”

“Why would you say something like that?” he snapped. “That’s so… ugh what’s that word… omelette?”

“Are you trying to say ‘ominous’?”

“Yeah! It’s ominous! So stop it. Let’s be cheerful from now on. You’re only allowed to say happy things.”

“Well then,” she said, smiling, “I’m happy that you’re my friend. And that it’s gonna be the summer soon, and we won’t have to worry about any of this stuff by then.”

“That’s better. And I’m happy you’re my friend too. No timeline split is ever gonna change that.”

As he said it, something else that Fu had said at his oracle session came to mind, something that dampened his spirits yet again.

_“Timeline splits that so strongly affect people are rare, and yet they have been happening with frequency. Of course, there is a superpower that I know of that allows people to have some level of control over the splitting of timelines, and can therefore affect the fates of others, but such a power is extremely rare and I do not know anyone who has it…”_

He hadn’t really thought about it much, not being able to take seriously the idea that someone could purposely be messing with his life like this. But now, for the first time, he properly considered it. Was there actually someone out there right now, who could cause the final split at any moment? Axe raised, waiting to drop it, not caring if Kim’s last moments were spent in endless fear over what was to come?

 

 

 

Over in Bourgeois, Chloé looked over a table map of her empire, a smile on her face. “Things are going well so far. The aid from the International Alliance has started coming in, and the commoners are already becoming more supportive of my reign. Though I’ve done some calculations and we’ll need to reduce the school’s funding even further to keep things stable, at least until the summer.”

“You may want to know,” Lila drawled, sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, “I have intel from Sabrina.”

Chloé face lit up even more. “How’s she doing?”

“She reunited with her father in Raincomprix now that the bounty is gone, and the faction leaders see that she seems like she really could be a capable ruler. They are willing to implement a united council to run the country, of which she can be a part. Though she would have to relinquish her royal title, and her country would stop being a monarchy.”

“Oh, well I’m glad she’s alright and that things are improving!”

“Me too. Oh, and one more thing. The telecommunication lines in the school’s region are down. It’ll be difficult to contact them.”

“Right, right, we need to get that fixed.” Chloé frowned. “I suppose we’ll have to lay off some of the school guards to have the money for that. Now that there are far fewer students that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, should it?”

“Possibly. What if Adrien returns?”

“Well that would be risky for him anyway, guards or no guards.”

“I think I should let you know that he is indeed returning, right as we speak.”

“What?!” Chloé gasped. “He’s coming back to school?”

“Yes, he is. And if I know it, then his father undoubtedly has spies who have found out about it too.”

“But… but we already cut ties with Agreste, so Emperor Gabriel can’t do anything…”

Lila shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him to try something. He’s angry, you know. Angry that his son keeps eluding him, angry that Bourgeois won’t support him, angry that the world won’t listen to him. He’s kind of on his last straw. If that breaks…”

She clicked her fingers.

“…he’ll snap.”

Chloé shivered. “And what does that mean for us? What does that mean for Adrien?”

“I don’t know. But it won’t be pleasant.”

“Hmm…” Chloé turned back to the treasury charts in front of her. “I… I suppose I won’t cut _all_ the guards’ funding then. The telecommunication lines can wait a little longer, if Adrien’s safety is at stake…”

 

 

 

As Alya and Nino sailed across the Atlantic, most of the journey was uneventful as always. The crew were skilled enough to avoid storms, pirates, anything that could slow them down. Alya was just about allowing herself to get her hopes up, knowing that the port they were headed for was less than a day away now, when finally it happened.

She was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of cannons firing, shortly followed by someone banging on her door. “Your Highness! Please wake up immediately, there is an emergency!”

Alya leapt out of bed, put on her glasses, and ran over, opening the door to see a panicked-looking servant standing there wringing their hands. “What’s going on?”

“Pirates trying to board us.”

“What? When we’re so close to land?”

“It seems they’ve been patrolling the coast waiting for any rich-looking ships. If they find yourself or His Highness Prince Nino, they’ll no doubt hold you for ransom!”

There was a boom, followed by the ship lurching to the side for a few seconds. The servant fell right over but Alya managed to keep her balance, pulling the necklace her mother gave her out of her nightdress pocket. “I’m not having anyone hold me for ransom. I’ll wake up Nino, you go find us some weapons. We won’t go down without a fight.”

“Y-you? You’re going to fight?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Um, very well Your Highness…”

The servant scrambled upright and bowed quickly before running back down the corridor. Alya headed in the other direction towards Nino’s room. At the same time, she pressed the button on the necklace, wondering if it would even do anything. All it did was let out a little beep. Huh… how long would it take for help to arrive?

Nino was already awake when she got to his door. “Alya? What’s going on?”

“Pirates.” She took his arm and began pulling him towards the armoury. “And when we were so close reaching our destination, too.”

“Are they coming aboard?”

“Most likely. Pirate ships are lighter and faster than ours. Depending on how nice they are they might keep the crew alive and just plunder as much loot as they can. They’ll ransom us for sure when they find out we’re royalty, though.”

“What do we do?!”

“We get weapons and protect ourselves.”

There was another almighty boom, followed by a scraping noise. The ship listed aside slightly again, this time not returning upright. Shouts from the deck above were becoming louder. Alya tightened her grip on Nino’s arm and quickened her pace.

“Sounds like they’re already boarding us,” she warned. “Maybe you should stay below deck and out of the fight.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m not sure… I mean, our best bet of staying alive is if they know we’re royalty which would make us too valuable for them to kill, in which case we’d better stay here and go find our crowns to put on, but if we fight back then maybe we can drive them off and have a chance of making it to shore soon and get back to school in time…”

Before she could come to a decision, the door at the end of the corridor was kicked down, and a few unfamiliar, scruffy-looking sailors burst through. It seemed like Alya’s decision was made for her. She stood in front of Nino, fists up and ready.

“That one’s the princess!” one of the pirates said to their crewmates, pointing at Alya. “Look at her hair, it’s gotta be her!”

“Then who’s the one behind her? Is that a servant?”

“Nah, I think he’s the prince of Lahiffe. I read a magazine that called them sweethearts.”

“You can read?!”

“Shut up! Go capture them!”

The pirates ran down the corridor, chains in hand. Alya had never been in such direct danger before, even through her eventful life, and though she knew deep down that her shaky fists were no match for these hardened criminals, she was determined to make this as difficult for them as possible, especially considering that Nino’s safety was on the line here too…

 

 

She opened her eyes, something sticky and warm running down her face. What had just happened? Her vision slowly swam into focus. It seemed that her glasses had cracked, jagged lines running over everything she saw. It looked like she was on the deck, sitting propped up against the mast, the sunrise just coming up over the horizon. There, not too far away, was land! Visible land, so close you could practically swim there!

But she couldn’t get there from here, right now. Looking down, she saw chains wrapped around her, stopping her moving. Her head was heavy, and the top of it was stinging rather nastily. Had the pirates knocked her out? Was she – was she _bleeding?_

“Alya? Are you awake?”

Nino!

Alya craned her neck round to just about see that Nino was tied on the opposite side of the mast in the same way that she was.

“Nino!” she whispered back. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re okay! What happened?”

“I don’t know, I don’t really remember everything… I think the pirates hit us and then tied us up here, and… and our crew didn’t really make it…”

Alya looked back at the deck, realizing something. This wasn’t her ship. This was a different ship! The pirates had brought them aboard here!

And looking aside, she could see the remains of her old ship not too far away in the water, slowly sinking down at an angle, the flag in miserable tatters. And driftwood floating all around. How much of the crew had managed to get out alive? What had the pirates done to them?

The sound of heavy, clunking footsteps grew audible. Alya looked up to see what undoubtedly was the pirate captain looking down at them, a curved sword in hand and a bandana wrapped around her head.

“So, the little princess is finally awake! I wonder how much money we’d get for returning you to your family?”

“They’d arrest you,” Alya snapped.

“Oh, well then is there really any point returning you? We already took all the expensive stuff from your ship. You’re from Césaire, they’ve got backups for the throne. Maybe we can just bump you off, and all your worries will be over.”

Alya clenched her fists, trying to think of a way out of this, but her head was still so heavy. Surely it couldn’t end like this!

“Of course,” the pirate said, sneering, “you could always join our crew instead. We’ve got some ex-rich kids aboard. They help us navigate and stuff. You might miss the comfort of a good bath, but you’d get used to it. And you’d have freedom from your stuffy rigid life, right? What do you say?”

Join the pirates? As much as that sounded like some exciting childhood fantasy, it could never be a reality. Alya had a loving family, she had friends who cared about her, she couldn’t just run away from it all. She could never live with herself if she did that. Her life was in the world of politics, not aboard a deadly schooner.

Her head was spinning. Was this really the end? Should she join the pirates, just to double-cross them later and find a way out? How could she get back to school in time to help her friends? How could she protect Nino? And how much more blood could she lose before she would surely pass out again?

The pirate captain held the sword out in front of her. “Answer within the next ten seconds or I run you through, and your boyfriend’s next.”

“No! Don’t hurt Nino!”

“Then are you joining us?”

Nino’s strained voice could be heard from the other side of the mast. “Alya, no… don’t join them…”

“I don’t know what to do,” she mumbled, her head dropping again, dizzy now. “I’m… I’m sorry Nino…”

Was this goodbye? Perhaps it was. Either to her life as a royal princess, sworn to join a league of pirates now, or goodbye to her life in general, a sword through her front rather than the backstabbing she had always expected from her life of espionage.

Tears spilled from her eyes as they drooped shut, ready to fall unconscious for the last time before her life was taken away from her.

Then she heard the foghorn.

Her eyes snapped open. She looked up, but saw nothing.

“What…?” The pirate had lowered her sword slightly, looking around too.

Alya’s head was still spinning, but this sudden noise was enough to keep her from passing out for now. The noise grew louder, so loud she was sure she was losing her mind, so loud she could hardly see what was even in front of her, and the noise was changing, tone by tone, and becoming…

No way. Was that the sound of… _an electric guitar?_

She turned aside to see a huge ship slowly launching itself out of the murky water beside the pirate schooner, its giant sails shining bright and dwarfing everything else. The pirate captain, along with the rest of the crewmates on the deck, were stumbling back in surprise.

Was this what the necklace’s emergency button had summoned?

Or was Alya so close to death that she was just hallucinating the fact that a giant ship had just appeared from under the water with no prior warning…?

“It’s the Liberty!” the pirate captain whispered in awe. “So it is real…”

The Liberty?

As the guitar faded out, a sailor from the mysterious new ship leapt off and landed on the pirate deck, a huge sword strapped to his back. He wore a dazzling blue cape, and his black hair had blue tips, a style that seemed so familiar, though Alya was much too out-of-it to remember right now.

He unsheathed his sword and pointed at the pirate captain. “Another pirate causing trouble? No problem for me and the crew of the Liberty!”

Several more sailors from the Liberty leapt onto the pirate deck, their weapons out and ready to go. Their outfits seemed so bright, almost supernaturally so. Alya’s eyes were closing on their own again. What was even happening? Nothing seemed real right now.

Through the ringing in her ears she heard the pirate captain order an attack, and heard the clashing of swords and the occasional shot of muskets, action too fast for her to follow. Then she felt soft hands removing the chains that bound her.

“Your Highness! You’re Princess Alya, right?”

She forced herself to open her eyes again to see that guy looking right at her. He looked a little like someone she knew, but… who?

“I got your distress signal,” he continued. “The one that you sent with your necklace? I made it here as quick as I could. Come on, let’s get you out of here while my team deal with the pirates. You need medical attention.”

He took her hand and helped her to her feet.

“Nino,” she mumbled, pointing behind her.

“Prince Nino’s here too! I’ll go free him immediately. Hold on.”

Alya was not sure how she could possibly hold on with all this chaos surrounding her, with smoke and violence and more blood than she had ever expected to see in her life, but she managed to stay on her feet. Within a few seconds Nino was by her side again, his arm wrapped around her.

“Nino! Oh, we’re okay…”

“I’m glad your necklace thing worked! But… I think I might faint… or throw up…”

“Me too…”

The mystery guy lifted Alya up on one shoulder and Nino up on the other. “No worries. I’ve got you. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

With those reassuring words in her ears, Alya finally allowed herself to succumb to unconsciousness.

 

 

She woke on the sparkling deck of the Liberty, a bandage on her head weighing it down somewhat. Nino was stirring beside her. The mystery saviour was standing over them, smiling.

“Told you you’d be fine!” he said.

Alya sat up immediately. “Thank you for rescuing us. But we need to get to Bourgeois immediately.”

“What? You need rest!”

“I can rest when I’m back at school.”

“Me too!” Nino said, sitting up too. “I’m going with Alya.”

The mystery guy shrugged. “It’s up to you, I guess. The Bourgeois mainland is right here, we can put you ashore. But your school… it’s inland a bit, isn’t it?”

“How do you know where my school is?” Alya said.

“I… know someone who goes there. Anyway, if you’re leaving before we can recover your royal possessions from the pirates, you’ll probably have to take commoner transport to get to school. Are you sure you’re up for that?”

“Yes,” Alya said, her fists clenched. “I’m getting to school one way or another.”

“Wow. You’re unbelievably brave, you know?”

“I have to be right now. There’s more at stake than just my life right now.” She got to her feet, ignoring her spinning head. That was enough passing out for now! “Thank you for getting us out of that mess. I don’t know who you are, but I guess you don’t have time to explain, do you?”

“Just like you don’t have time to explain how my foghorn somehow started sounding like an electric guitar. It’s never done that before. Did you do that somehow? We all know some royalty have superpowers.”

Alya looked down. “Yeah, I… Fu told me I have the powers of… well, I didn’t think it would ever be useful, and I don’t know how to use them properly anyway, but apparently it did work…”

“Good thing you did it. Normal foghorn doesn’t usually distract pirates enough until the ship launches out of the water. At least an electric guitar confused them enough that they didn’t kill you before I got here.”

So she had accidentally used her powers? Well, that was a weird way to start it off. But at least she knew that they worked, now, even if she had no idea how to summon them again. Maybe she would figure it out in time. But time was something that she did not have a lot of right now.

“We’d better be going now,” she said, taking Nino’s hand. “You said you can get us ashore?”

“Yeah. Follow me.”

The mystery sailor led them over to an escape boat on the side of the Liberty opposite from the pirates. They climbed in, and he began lowering the ropes until they were in the water and floated off towards the not-so-distant shore.

“Good luck!” he called out to them as Alya used up the last of her energy to take the oars and start rowing them away.

“Thank you!” she and Nino called back in unison.

“No problem! And when you get to school, tell Juleka that Prince Luka sends his love!”

With that, he turned around with a swish of his cape and walked out of sight.

“Prince Luka?” Nino asked. “Was that guy a prince?”

“I guess so,” Alya muttered, still rowing hard, the shore getting closer and closer. “Juleka keeps her life and kingdom a mystery, but I did know she had a brother who declined to be heir to the throne or join the school. This must be him.”

“Whoa… he’s kinda cool, isn’t he? Seems like he has some kind of magic powers, what with that magic underwater ship and everything. And if he gave your mum that necklace for you because you helped out a family member of his one time…”

Alya was already thinking hard about that. “I only really did one helpful thing for Juleka though. Maybe it had a bigger impact on her than I thought at the time.”

“Really? What was it?”

She grinned. “I told her to ask out Rose.”

Nino grinned back, taking one of the oars and helping out. “Yeah, well Juleka and Rose started a revolution at school. Next we had Chloé and Lila, then Kim and Max, then Aurore and Mireille, and who knows who else…”

“You’re right! Max came out to his country, Alix did the same, I guess you must have at some point too, though so much longer ago…”

“People back home are chill, they don’t mind that much,” Nino said. “As Alix once put it: they don’t care if their prince doesn’t have a dick, so long as he isn’t a dick.”

Alya, exhausted though she was, had to chuckle. “Well, I suppose the ‘revolution’ was going to happen whether I was part of it or not. But Luka must be really grateful for me encouraging his sister. I’ll always remember this day. He saved our lives.”

“Yeah. He’s a hero. And now it’s our turn to go be heroes, right?”

“Right!”

They had just about made it to shore, the currents luckily helping them out. They hopped out of the boat, ignoring the freezing cold water around their ankles, and hand-in-hand made their way over to the beach. Finally, land! They had managed to make it across the ocean, even if not totally unscathed.

“Now we find the nearest train station and get aboard,” Alya said. “We should be at school by evening. You ready?”

Nino nodded. “Yep. I’m ready.”

“Awesome. Well then, let’s…”

She stopped, seeing something in the distance. It was hard to focus on exactly when her glasses were cracked so much. Out at sea towards the south were the Liberty and the pirate ship, still in battle, of course. But there, to the north, much further out near the horizon…

“What is it?” Nino asked, following her gaze out to sea.

“That ship,” Alya said, squinting. “It looks familiar… I studied different nation ship designs while we were aboard just in case we had any trouble, and I saw that one…”

“You can tell from here? Wow… you’re so smart…”

There was no time to blush at the compliment – she recognized that ship, and a rush of dread filled her. “Oh god – Nino, we have to hurry. We have to get to school as quick as possible!” She held his hand tighter and began pulling him along as quick as she could.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ll explain along the way – but we have to warn Adrien! As soon as we can!”

 

 

Imperial Prince Adrien himself reached school that evening, after a long, weary journey through the countryside. Oddly enough there was only one single guard stationed outside the school – but then again, that wasn’t all that odd considering how he had personally seen the state of the Bourgeois Empire as he travelled through it. If Chloé was using as much money as possible to fix the infrastructure, it made sense there would not be a lot left over for hiring school guards.

After showing his royal seal, the guard let him in and he ran as quick as he could, clutching Plagg in his arms tightly. It had been so long since he’d last been here! This familiar place! These familiar walls and gardens! Oh, how he had missed it! This familiar river that people called the “moat”, never mind if that was incorrect!

But things seemed different, too. It was mostly dark by now but he could tell. School would have started already today but there were no lights in the buildings. The rain was pouring down heavily and the river was raging, so strongly it could be heard easily from up here. The walls of the school were overgrown, the gardens unkempt, the very building looking ill.

Wow, Chloé really had cut the maintenance funding, hadn’t she…

Adrien continued into the building and ran through the corridors, looking for anyone he knew – Marinette, Nino, Alya, Kim, anyone he was friends with! He barely even passed any nobles, though they all stared at him in shock. Where was everyone? This place was so empty!

Then he heard a voice, one that filled his heart and soul with such sweet relief.

“Adrien! It’s you!”

There, up ahead, at the bottom of the staircase, sat Marinette. She leapt to her feet and rushed over, colliding with him in a hug so hard it knocked him to the ground. He didn’t even care – he hugged her back, so tightly, his face finally breaking into a smile, a laugh escaping him, after all these months of misery and silence.

“Oh… Marinette…”

“Adrien, thank goodness! You’re okay… you’re alive…”

“I’m fine! I’m so glad, oh Marinette I’ve missed you…”

“I missed you too!”

Plagg wriggled out of the hug, meowing loudly.

“And I missed you as well, Plagg,” Marinette said, giving him a stroke. Then she turned her attention back to Adrien, loosening her grip enough to help him to his feet. “Oh man, I’ve been here at these stairs since school finished today, waiting…”

Before he could even reply she kissed him, and for several seconds he forgot about everything else and how afraid he was, how much danger he was in. He had missed Marinette’s company so _much_ , and now he finally had her back…

Eventually she pulled back, and he forced his brain back into order. “How… how did you know I’d be coming here?”

“Alix’s timeline thing. I know you have superpowers too, and that Plagg’s your guardian animal, she told me so. Is it true?”

He nodded. “It’s true. When I think negative thoughts, like… thoughts about my father… I can use my powers to destroy things. Though it’s kind of tiring.”

“I’ve got kind of tiring powers too,” Marinette giggled. “I can control luck. Or something. I’ve only really used it to beat Kim at Monopoly so far.”

“Oh, so Kim’s alright?”

“Yeah, he’s fine, he’s here! Though the school’s not really doing so well right now, is it? The electricity has mostly stopped working so it’s all dark and no one can charge their phones, though no one can use their phones anyway considering the telecommunication lines are broken, and even Markov’s on low power mode – oh wait, you’ve never met him, have you? Max made a robot called Markov, and he has emotions.”

“Uh… right…” That was a lot to take in right now.

“Sorry, I guess you need time to rest. That journey must have been tiring. What will you do now? Are you staying here until the summer holidays, or will you go back to Agreste and face your father? I’ll support you no matter what. With our powers combined, we can do anything, right? You can use your powers of destruction, and I can make sure you get lucky.”

What would he do? Honestly, he had not entirely been convinced that he would even make it this far. For several seconds he just leaned his forehead against Marinette’s, relishing in this brief moment of relative safety. “I… I should probably stand up to my father, shouldn’t I? It’s about time I faced him again.”

At that moment he heard a voice behind him, a voice he had not heard in years, a cold, _icy_ voice that chilled him right to the bone.

The voice that had caused all his problems in the first place.

“Yes, Adrien. It is about time you faced me again.”


	71. The final misadventure

Adrien was frozen on the spot. Surely he must be dreaming, or hallucinating, or _something._ This couldn’t be real. Perhaps the long journey had taken a toll on him, perhaps he just needed a good long rest.

But seeing the look in Marinette’s eyes, a mix of terror and fury as she looked past his shoulder behind him, his worst fears were confirmed. He braced himself and turned around, dread settling into his stomach.

There, right in front of him, stood his father. Emperor Gabriel of Agreste, the ruler over millions of people worldwide, was a tall, imposing man. It was unnerving to see him in a corridor usually populated by scrawny noble teenagers. He was decked out in his military uniform, dozens of badges gleaming on his chest, the gold buttons polished enough to shine brightly even in this dark, dreary atmosphere. In fact, Adrien could not remember the last time he saw him in more casual clothing.

Emperor Gabriel was watching Adrien with those cold eyes of his, the tiniest of triumphant smiles on his face. Adrien was still in too much shock to move – he had not seen his father in person for what must be well over a _year_ now. And he had expected that he would at least have a little respite before the inevitable confrontation. In all his speculations, he had never considered that he would come face to face with his father as soon as arriving at school.

“Son, I’m glad to see that you have finally returned. I’ve been waiting.”

Gabriel had spoken again, his superficially kind words doing nothing to mask the anger in his voice. He began walking towards Adrien – only for Marinette to step in between them, an arm out to protect Adrien.

“Please step aside,” Gabriel commanded. “I would like to speak with my son. This does not concern you.”

Adrien had known that when it came down to it, Marinette would ignore the commands of the world’s most powerful emperor for him without hesitation. But seeing her glare at Gabriel, refusing to move in spite of direct orders, almost brought tears to his eyes. He clenched his fists. Enough of this catatonia – if his friends could stand up for him, then he could stand up for himself too.

“I don’t know what delusions you are under,” Gabriel continued, annoyance seeping through his otherwise controlled demeanour, “but I am not going to harm Adrien.”

“Perhaps not physically,” Marinette retorted, though Adrien saw her warily glancing at the sword hanging at his Gabriel’s waist.

“It’s okay, Marinette,” Adrien said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll have to at some point, it may as well be now.”

“Fine. Be careful.” She stepped back and allowed him in front of her.

He looked up at his father, bad memories flooding back into him so fast he could feel his destruction powers bleeding right through his fingers, threatening to destroy the air itself. In the past, seeing Gabriel or even just hearing his voice was enough to subdue Adrien, restrain him into obeying the rules of his dull, cruel, imperial lifestyle. But now? Now it was filling him with _anger_.

“What do you want, father?” He noted with satisfaction that Gabriel seemed taken aback by the fire in his voice, at least for a few seconds. He had never spoken to his father like that before. Not directly. It felt good, so good! His very fingertips were tingling with destructive energy, waiting to be unleashed.

“Adrien,” Gabriel said, attempting to sound kinder, “I have missed you. Do you know how worried I was when you recklessly ran away from home like that? I am glad you have come to your senses. Now, we can return home together and forget that this all ever happened.”

He reached out an arm, but Adrien instinctively pulled away. For years and years he had wished to hear his father regard him with such affection – but in these circumstances, it just made him _sick_. Gabriel had missed him? Perhaps it was true, in its own twisted way, but he didn’t care.

“I will not be returning home right now,” Adrien said. “I’m here to complete my education. And I know if I go back, you’ll just put me under house arrest again.”

“I would not refer to it as house arrest. This school has caused you to become rebellious, and I would like to keep you within your palace quarters until you are back to normal.”

“Being repressed isn’t _normal_ , father! I want freedom! And it doesn’t matter if you put me back under house arrest, or whatever you call it. I’ll never be like you.”

Gabriel sighed, rubbing his forehead. “This is what I meant by ‘rebellious’. It is exactly why I asked Nathalie to keep you in the palace while I was away. The longer you stay away from home, the more commoner-like you become. This time, however, I will see to your education myself. You will return home with me, _now_ , and I will not tolerate your disobedience any longer. You’re really trying my patience.”

It was Adrien’s patience that was reaching its end now. Every single word his father said was grating on him more and more, and he couldn’t take it. He just couldn’t take it!

“I’m not going back with you!” he snapped. “And anyway, no amount of house arrest and propaganda shoved down my throat is going to change anything! If you try to take me back, I’ll fight every step of the way. And when I’m emperor, I’ll undo all your cruel work. If you disown me, then you won’t even have any heirs. Your precious empire will splinter away into nothing once you’re gone, and all your conquests will have been for nothing.”

“Adrien–”

“No, let me speak! You never listened to me, ever, did you? You were a terrible father. You had me, your own son, locked up! Out of a twisted sense of love! Blaming maman leaving for everything that’s wrong with you! And… and you tried to kill my friend. Prince Kim. Yes, he’s my friend, my very good friend, and you tried to _kill him_ , all because you want to add his country to your special collection, as if the lives of the millions of people who live there, or anywhere else in the world, mean _nothing_. But I won’t be part of your worldly chess game, no matter what you do. The people of the world deserve better than being forced against their will to assimilate into the orders of a person like _you_. And… I deserve better too. My life is my own to live, and I’m not letting you take that away from me.”

All the way through his outburst his voice had grown louder and louder, and now he had stopped, leaving the torrential rain as the only sound filling in the ensuing silence. Adrien glared at his father, more furious than ever. He did not regret losing his temper, raising his voice – and for the first time in quite a while, he did not feel afraid at all.

It took several moments before Gabriel spoke again, his voice much more level than Adrien’s fiery rant.

“Your loss, son. You would have made a great emperor, had you just been like me. But I suppose you are too sensitive for that. Just like the commoners and lower royalty and nobility that you cherish so much. You simply do not understand the true ruthlessness of the world, and therefore you cannot thrive in it. Are there any other empires as strong as mine? No, because there are no other emperors like me.”

“No other emperors as _hated_ as you, you mean.”

“You underestimate my power, Adrien. Every battle won is a step towards winning the war. By the time I die, the whole world will be in my hands. And if it breaks after I’m gone? Then people will look back at me as the one who held it all together, upholding my legacy. It is a win no matter what. My conquests will live forever, with or without your help.”

Had he really spent so much time amongst his own armies, amongst his own supporters, that he really believed all this?

“You don’t know anything about the world at all,” Adrien said. “Everyone will remember you as a dictator. Because that’s what you are.”

“The commoners need guidance from a strong-willed leader. If they cannot appreciate the help I am giving them by being that leader, then that shows why none of them are fit to rule. And if you and your friends here at school do not understand that, then none of you are fit to rule either. Speaking of which: tell me, where is the prince of Lê Chiến?”

Adrien, having only just arrived at school himself, had no idea. But evidently his father did not know that. “I won’t tell you. Why would I betray him to you, when I know you’ll just kill him and take his country while it’s weak?”

“You do have a talent for putting things in a way that makes them sound bad, don’t you? I am _saving_ his country. My intelligence reports that the boy is far too impulsive to be a good ruler. I am doing his people a favour. Now, _tell me where he is.”_

“Kim has changed, father. He used to just be a silly kid, like lots of people. But he’s a good prince now. And more importantly, he’s a good person. He doesn’t try to kill innocent people just because he wants their land, unlike someone else I know. He’s going to be a wonderful king. I actually used to have a crush on him, did you know that? He was my first kiss and everything. I hope that annoys you.”

“There are much more ‘annoying’ things I am concerned about right now. Such as his whereabouts.”

Adrien folded his arms. “I’m not telling you.”

“Well then, you’re no son of mine. I will find himself, and end this once and for all.”

With that, he turned to leave. At this point Adrien’s fury was so strong that his powers of destruction were practically leaping out of his hands, raring to go. To think that his father was going to kill Kim, having given up on sending assassins – he was going to outright, directly, kill him! It riled him up so much that the very world around him seemed to have a red tinge to it.

Adrien raised his hand, watching his father’s retreating back. It really was time to end this once and for all.

All he had to do was run up, put his hand on the back of Gabriel’s pointlessly intricate uniform, and watch as his powers disintegrated all his problems into dust. It would only take a second. It was that easy. Gabriel was right there, within range.

Now was the time to do it.

Right now.

And yet… and _yet…_

He hesitated. Half of his brain was screaming at him to just go for it, and he wanted more than anything to listen to it.

But the other half, sentimentality was trickling in, filling his boiling blood with ice, rooting him to the spot.

He took a half-hearted step forward, but it was already too late. Doubts were clouding his mind, the anger melting away into frustration. His hand, wavering in the air, slowly lowered on its own accord. All his motivation was flooding out of him before he could stop it.

No… no, he couldn’t… he couldn’t do it…

“Adrien?” He heard Marinette’s footsteps running up from behind, then her arms closing around him. “You were… that was…”

He had almost forgotten that she was there. But right now, he couldn’t even bring himself to feel a shred of relief. Thrusting his face into his hands, he let the tears start running out of his eyes.

“Marinette, I… I can’t kill him! I know I should have! To save Kim. But… I j-just _couldn’t_ …”

He groaned in frustration, tugging at his hair. The urgency of the situation was dawning on him. Sure, Gabriel was his father, but a terrible one! One who neglected him for years, restricting him on every front in the same totalitarian ways he ruled his empire, then had him locked away! And now that terrible, terrible man was going to go and kill his friend – and yet Adrien couldn’t even bring himself to end his life first, even when the world depended on it!

“We’ll find another way,” Marinette said firmly. “There must be a way. We can go find Kim first, and warn him. Smuggle him out of here or something.”

Adrien lifted his face away from his hands, grateful to see the supportive look Marinette was giving him. “Do you know where he is?”

“No, unfortunately I don’t, and without Lila or Alya here I’m not sure if there’s a quick way to find out, but I suppose I could try using my luck powers or something…”

“Will he be in his dorm? Should we check there first?”

“That might be a good idea, though he usually goes for runs at this time of evening so it’s unlikely–”

Their conversation was interrupted by shouts from across the corridor, towards the entrance.

“MARINETTE! ADRIEN! THERE YOU ARE!”

They turned to see some rather bedraggled-looking people running up to them. Once they were closer, however, Adrien realized that these people were none other than Alya and Nino. They were alright – oh, thank goodness! A stroke of happiness hit his heavy heart, cheering him up ever so slightly. He had missed his friends _so much_ , and at this point in time, was fully expecting something terrible would happen and he would never get to see them again.

He ran over, only to be knocked down in a hug from the both of them. Only when he pulled away did he notice their injuries.

“What happened to you?” Marinette asked, helping them all up off the ground.

“Pirates, long story,” Alya said. She was out of breath. “But we have a warning. We saw a ship from the Agreste Empire on its way here earlier today. Looks like Gabriel’s sent someone to come fetch Adrien.”

“Gabriel is already here. He just talked to us, actually.”

“Really?! What did he say? Where is he now?”

“He wanted me to go home with him,” Adrien said. “But I refused. And yelled at him. And then he said he was going to go find Kim, and… and I should have killed him with my destruction powers, but…”

“It’s alright,” Marinette insisted. “Alya, do you know a quick way for us to find Kim? This school is huge and there are so few people here right now, he could be anywhere, even out for a run or something, and we can’t let Gabriel get to him first!”

Alya thought for a few seconds, but then shook her head. “I can’t really think of anything, since most of my spy network left before the spring holidays, even Lila…”

“What about your powers?” Nino suggested to her. “Illusions, right? You could make a bunch of Kim illusions to distract Gabriel, or… or use illusions to like, I dunno, send distant Morse code messages to his friends to ask if they know where he is, or…”

“Nino, that could actually work! Alix and Markov both know Morse code, right? And that snake? Their dorm windows are visible from the area of the courtyard that we’re near… yes, yes, this might work! Come on, let’s hurry!”

She began running over to the nearest door, and the others all followed, even Plagg running along behind the group. Alya opened the door to the courtyard and stepped out into the heavy rain, looking up at the windows on the distant opposite wall.

“I’ve only used my powers once so far,” she called over the rain to the others, who were standing just inside to watch. “But I think I know how to do it. In situations where it’s urgent, it just sort of… comes naturally, I guess.”

Putting her hands together, she furrowed her brows and focused hard. Within a few seconds, a blindingly bright light shone out of her palms, so bright it made the overcast sky look bright and sunny.

“Got it! Now, my Morse code is a little rusty, but I’ll start sending a repeating message and hope they see it.”

There was no doubt that they would see it if they were in the dormitories, considering how bright the light was. It would be impossible not to notice. Alya began flashing the light over and over, getting soaked to the skin but not caring one bit. The others just watched in silence, waiting for a reply somehow, perhaps someone running down to the courtyard to find them and answer their question, hoping that somehow this would work…

 

 

 

Max sat in his dorm room at the desk, looking over his little sleeping robot by flickering candlelight. The lack of reliable electricity was so frustrating! Not only could Markov not charge his batteries, meaning it was best for him to remain in sleep mode, but the overhead lights barely worked either! Occasionally they’d alight for a few brief seconds, only to shut off again and leave the building in darkness once more. It was enough to give someone a headache.

At least he had Alix for company while he tinkered with Markov, trying to do something useful such as improving his battery life or giving him extra features. He may as well. So far he had added a radio connection, an LED torch, and had even begun plans to waterproof him so that he wouldn’t have to stay out of the rain. Markov had indeed been complaining about being unable to swim like humans did – and Max very much suspected that Ondine had something to do with that.

“I think Adrien’s just arrived,” Alix said, perched up on the desk to watch Max’s work.

“Oh? How do you know?”

“Because he’s just made it back to school in the exile timeline, the one where I’m with him.”

Max smiled. “Excellent. It would be good to see him again, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah. Ooh, in the other timeline he’s just run into Marinette, and the other me has decided to go off and leave them alone because she wants them to get together, like how they are in this timeline…”

“Are they not together in that timeline then?” Max did not want to admit that he could not keep track of everything going on in all these confusing timelines, but it was true. The only ones who seemed to be able to truly tell what was going on were Alix and her pet snake.

“No, but hopefully they will be. Hey – the other me just ran into Count Wayhem! Okay, she’s telling him to go find Adrien and give him the cat, ‘cause it’s his guardian animal so he needs to protect it and needs its help to control his powers properly.”

So Adrien didn’t have the cat already in the other timeline either? This really was a mess. “What else is happening? Please continue this running commentary, it’s entertaining.”

“Of course it is. So yeah, Wayhem’s run off with that cat to go find Adrien, and the other me is on her way up to the dorms… she’s knocking on your door now… you just opened the door, and…”

“And what?”

Alix grinned. “The other me is kicking herself for thinking that you wouldn’t be happy to see her, ‘cause you really are. You hugged her and told her how much you’d missed her. And now you’re gonna show her Markov, since she hasn’t met him.”

“I’m glad to hear that Markov exists in that timeline too.”

“Yeah, me too. And now…”

She trailed off, looking towards the window. Max did too – there seemed to be some sort of very bright light shining through it, illuminating the entire room. What on earth was that? He stood up and walked over to take a look.

Over in the corner of the courtyard he could just about see someone, though he couldn’t tell from here who it was. They seemed to be creating the bright light from their hands alone! Was it someone with superpowers? Max could not recall anyone who had superpowers like that.

The light had begun flashing now, lighting up the room in spurts like fireworks.

_..- .-. --. . -. - // - .... .. ... / .. ... / .- .-.. -.-- .- // .-- .... . .-. . / .. ... / -.- .. -- // --. .- -... .-. .. . .-.. / .. ... / .-.. --- --- -.- .. -. --. / ..-. --- .-. / .... .. --//_

He turned to look at Alix, who had come over to watch too. After a minute or so of internally translating, she spoke.

“It’s an urgent message from Alya. She says that Emperor Gabriel’s here, looking for Kim, and she needs to know where he is…”

Gabriel was looking for Kim? Max’s brain immediately went into protection mode. “We can’t let Gabriel find him.”

“Well where is he? Do you know?”

“He went off to the big balcony in the new wing.”

“Damn, I really am psychic. I had a bad feeling about that place ages ago, I totally called it.”

Max looked back down out of the window. “How are we going to tell Alya?”

“I guess I could skate down there as fast as I can, but she’s all the way on the opposite side of the courtyard so it’ll take forever…”

“I have an idea.” Max walked back over to the desk. “We’ll use Markov.”

“What, are you gonna make him fly down there or something? It’s raining. He doesn’t even have much battery left.”

“No, we’ll use his LED lights.” He pressed the power button and waited a few seconds. Markov’s eyes opened, looking around.

“Max? Alix? You turned me back on? Is the electricity working again?”

“Not consistently, no. But we need you for something important. I’ve installed you with powerful LED lights, and I’m not sure that you have enough battery power left for you to use them for too long, but we need to send an urgent Morse code message to someone down in the courtyard and this is the quickest way.”

Markov propelled himself out of Max’s hands and into the air. “Of course I’ll help you with that! What’s the message?”

Alix had already been writing it on a piece of paper, and now handed it to Markov. “Here. Go to the window and then use your power lights, or whatever.”

“Okay!”

Markov flew over to the window, then used the newly installed torch to begin shining bright messages back. His light seemed just as powerful as Alya’s. Both combined were enough to need sunglasses for prolonged periods, surely.

_-... .. --. / -... .- .-.. -.-. --- -. -.-- / .. -. / -. . .-- / .-- .. -. --. !_

He repeated the message a few times, just to be sure. Alya’s light had shut off, and after a repeat or so she seemed to have gone back inside, presumably to the balcony to go warn Kim.

“So, what’s going on?” Markov asked, flitting back over.

“Emperor Gabriel has arrived at school and is searching for Kim,” Max said. “I can’t let anything happen to him. No – I _won’t_ let anything happen to him. We’ve all had enough of this. I’m going to the balcony to find him.”

He started heading towards the door at top speed. Adrenaline was rushing through him, more than ever before – he would do absolutely anything to protect Kim, anything. There was no way he’d let Gabriel do anything to hurt him. Not after everything they’d all been through. He loved Kim too much to not be there to protect him when he needed it.

“We’re coming with you!”

Alix and Markov zoomed over to join him, to his relief. He knew it was reckless to go face a ruthless emperor all alone, if that was what was going to happen. But whenever Kim was involved, everything he ever did seemed reckless, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“What are we even going to do?” Max mused.

“I could fist-fight Gabriel with my bare hands,” Alix suggested. “Or get my snake to bite him. Or something.”

“Well hopefully we won’t have to face him at all, and we’ll get to Kim before he does. Or perhaps Alya will get there first. And then we have to find a way to get Kim out of here…”

But even as he said it, his heart was sinking. They could help Kim escape, but then what? If Gabriel had been determined enough to come to this school, despite the fact that the Bourgeois Empire was no longer accepting of him, then where would he stop? Would he ever give up?

Surely there had to be a better way to end things.

 

 

 

Kim stood at the edge of the balcony, his hood up to protect his hair, holding his phone in his hands and seeing if he would get any signal here. Surely there had to be somewhere at this school he could make a phone call from! He hadn’t spoken to Kagami in ages, and he’d promised he would call Ondine, and he wanted to see if the telecommunication lines to his country were working again so he could talk to his grandmother…

Well, if he wasn’t getting signal here, out on the very edge of the school, then he wouldn’t get it anywhere. Resigned, he put his phone back in his pocket and leaned on the balcony railings, looking over the edge. The “moat” was flooded, turbulent, and more dangerous than he had ever seen it. Even Ondine wouldn’t be able to swim through something like that. And the more it rained, the worse it got.

Bad weather, no electricity, hardly anyone here… Kim was already in a sour mood, and he’d only been here for a day. At least it couldn’t get any worse.

“Prince Kim – I have found you at last.”

Oh, apparently it could get worse. That deep voice sounded like it was probably a teacher or some annoying official or something, and he didn’t even want to know how he could possibly already be in trouble. He sighed and turned around – only for his heart to suddenly drop.

That was… no, surely it couldn’t be. No way.

But Kim had seen plenty of portraits, adorning the walls of the school before being taken off, painted into history books, even occasional black-and-white photographs. Kim knew what Emperor Gabriel of Agreste looked like.

And this guy, standing in front of him, just far enough away to be under the roof of the school and out of the rain… that was him.

Kim had no idea what to say. Part of him was convinced he was dreaming. Was Gabriel really here? At this school? Right now? Maybe it was, like… an imposter or something? But he had on that Agreste military outfit that Adrien used to wear when he first started at school, and all those medals and badges, and he was so tall and terrifying that even Kim, as fearless as he tried to be, had a chill run through him.

What to say? _What to say?_

“Uh… hey.”

He was hit with the immediate urge to smack himself in the head. To think that finally he was face to face with the person who’d been making his life hell for the past few years, and that was all he could say?! _Hey?!_

Gabriel ignored it anyway. “I believe you know who I am, despite addressing me incorrectly.”

Kim just nodded.

“Good. And I believe you know why I am here, too.”

That part hadn’t quite hit Kim yet, but now it did. Gabriel was the one who had sent those poisoned chocolates, the one who had probably arranged the death of his grandfather, the one who had sent troops to invade his kingdom and pillage the borders. Gabriel was here to _kill him_.

His knees felt weak.

“I am here to negotiate the terms of your surrender,” Gabriel continued. “Your kingdom is weak, and if you want it to prosper, it would be better to have in the hands of an experienced leader. Agree to pass over your rulership to me, and I will not harm you.”

Oh, so he wasn’t going to kill him? For a second Kim was relieved – until he remembered that Gabriel had already tried to have him killed in the past. Someone like that was _not_ to be trusted.

“No offence, but I don’t wanna give my country to you,” Kim said. “Sorry.”

Unexpectedly, Gabriel smiled. “I understand. Someone like you needs better terms, such as a challenge. So let me put it that way. I challenge you to a mortal sword duel. If I win, your country will become part of my empire. If you win, you keep your country. The loser will not live to see the result either way.”

“A… a duel to the death?”

“Yes. I hear you never turn down a challenge. You won’t start now, will you?”

Well of course Kim didn’t turn down challenges, but usually those challenges were things like tennis matches or rollerskate races! Not fatal duels with high stakes against a trained military commander.

“What will you do if I do turn down your challenge?” he asked.

“If you do, it will prove you unworthy to be a true leader, in which I must take matters into my own hands and take your country by force. If that includes your demise, well… that’s just unlucky for you.”

Kim gulped, aware of the sword hanging in the sheath on Gabriel’s belt, the rickety chandelier in the room ahead, and the deadly river waiting below. Dying here would be just too easy.

In his first year he had challenged Adrien to a duel over something similar, hadn’t he? Not a duel to the death, of course, but still. It was to do with a weakened kingdom fighting back against a cruel empire. Adrien had managed to dissuade him from that. Surely Adrien’s father must have some good in him too, enough to convince him to stop all this?

“We don’t have to fight,” Kim said, internally cringing at how lame and cliché that sounded. “We could like… have a meeting or something.”

“There have been negotiations between our two domains, and they achieved nothing. It is clear that Lê Chiến and Agreste want different things. If it cannot be sorted out peacefully, then there is only one way to settle it.”

“But what about the International Alliance?” Kim asked quickly, noticing with alarm that Gabriel’s hand was already going to the hilt of his sword. “My country is part of that now, so they’d be really annoyed if you took over.”

“Defectors from the crumbling end of the Bourgeois regime are joining my ranks as we speak. Even the International Alliance cannot compare to my vast military, and they don’t even know it. I will be able to defend my territory, don’t you worry about that. I’ve worked too hard to let them stop me now. And in any case, with no witnesses around, no one will know if the untimely end of the prince of Lê Chiến was an accident or not…”

Kim shivered, and not from the cold – it couldn’t end like this. Were there any guards around? Usually they would be taking rounds of the school, but what with Chloé cutting the budget, perhaps there weren’t enough left to be patrolling this area. Gabriel really had him cornered.

“I can’t accept the duel ‘cause I don’t even have a sword anyway,” Kim said, wondering if stalling him long enough would change his mind, or at least that someone else might turn up by chance and help him out.

“This school has plenty of swords that you could be lent, I’m sure. Though I’d thought better of you. From what I’ve heard, Prince Kim is fearless and never shies away from challenges, no matter what. In reality, you are a coward.”

“No I’m not!”

“Then prove it.”

Gabriel pulled out the sword and stepped out into the rain, ready. He was purposely trying to goad Kim into accepting his challenge, wasn’t he? That way any tragic death could be attributed to a completely willing duel, and any consequences for the murder could be avoided. But the truth of it was, Kim knew he would die either way. There was no route to survival now – except stalling.

“First of all,” Kim said, trying to sound as smart and logical as Max always did, “there’s different kinds of bravery. It’s not all about fighting and physical strength and stuff! I used to think it was, but I was wrong. Standing up for what’s right counts as being brave too. So you, an evil emperor guy, challenging me, an innocent little prince, to a sword duel to the death, is way less brave than me refusing it. Just saying.”

“With friends like you, it’s no wonder my son became the way he did. Only the weak talk like you do, in order to make yourselves feel better for not having my kind of strength.”

Gabriel was advancing slowly now, and Kim was already backed up against the balcony railing with nowhere else to go. He had to keep stalling.

“Second of all, I’m not the idiot kid I used to be. I used to be a jerk who picked on people ‘cause I thought it was fun, and didn’t think before doing anything. But I’m not like that anymore. Adrien helped, actually. I even asked him out once since he’s really cute and–”

“Yes, he already informed me just now, thank you.”

“Wait, when? Is… is he here? At the school?” Kim’s spirits lifted from the deep pit they had settled into.

“He is indeed.”

“Well then, there’s no way you’re gonna win and take my country! He said he was gonna come back to stop you. And my friend Marinette too, she wants to stop you as well. So you’ll lose, no matter what. I trust them to team up and take you down.”

He very carefully mentioned nothing about their superpowers. If Gabriel did not know about that yet, that was better. In any case, Kim was not lying – he did trust Marinette and Adrien. No one else had stronger powers than them.

“You are incredibly naïve,” Gabriel said. “I will always win, and I have a way to make sure of it.”

Sword still in one hand, with the other he pulled a little bottle out of one of his many pockets. It seemed to have some kind of little purple insect in it.

“See this little butterfly? It is a special animal, one that gives the carrier magnificent powers.”

He put the bottle back in his pocket. Kim’s spirits were sinking again, dread washing over him – that butterfly was Gabriel’s guardian animal? And he had superpowers too?

“Perhaps you are educated enough to have heard of the butterfly effect,” Gabriel said now. “I can use it to ensure that no matter what, I will get my way. There will always be an outcome where I am victorious. I can split the very universe itself, again and again, until I get my way. I have done it before, and I can do it again. For every universe in which I lose, there will be one in which I win. If my son and his friend try to stop me, I will simply split apart the universes, and there is nothing you can do to stop me.”

So it was _him_. Gabriel was the one with the power to split timelines, the one causing all the messes in the first place, the one ruining everything. And judging by what he was saying, he was about to do it again.

_In one timeline you will be able to go home this summer, and in the other you won’t. At present it is impossible for me to tell you which one you will end up in._

Fu had been right…

“So it’s your fault,” Kim said, so many emotions flooding him he wasn’t even sure what to do. “It’s thanks to you that in one timeline Max got poisoned by those chocolates you sent, or that Alix and Adrien are commoners, or that Alix got bitten by a venomous snake…”

“I don’t know the specific details. And in any case, those things are all _your_ faults. I merely changed the circumstances in which your lives happened. Anything that occurred was a result of your decisions. Clearly, those decisions were bad.”

“Personally I think _sending poisoned chocolates halfway across the world to kill a kid you’ve never even met_ is a much worse decision, but whatever.”

Gabriel sighed. “I tire of this pointless talk. Considering you will soon be no longer, I’m merely allowing you some amusement. But enough of that.”

He pointed his sword directly at Kim, taking another step forwards, far too close for comfort now.

“If it’s any reassurance, I’ll make it relatively painless.”

Oh yes, because being run through with a sword was _painless_ , of course…

“And I will take good care of your country. Well, soon it will be _my_ country. Your torment and eternal futile evasion will be no more. So close your eyes, Prince Kim, and say your prayers. This is the end of the line.”

Kim’s survival instincts were kicking in at full force – it couldn’t end like this! There was no way Gabriel could win, not after he’d worked so hard to stop him! What could he do? Grab the sword blade with his bare hand? But no, Gabriel wasn’t scared of him, and he didn’t have a venomous pet to back him up… Carry on talking? No, Gabriel was tired of that… Jump into the river? If he did that, he’d die for sure!

There was nothing for it. He just had to hope that something was going to happen, that by some _miracle_ someone would save him, that somehow he would live to see another day – and see his grandmother again, and Max, and Alix, and everyone else –!

 

 

 

Marinette, Adrien, Alya and Nino were all out of breath by the time they reached the corridor outside the big room where the balcony was located. From the other end of the corridor they saw Alix, Max, and the snake zooming towards them on a skateboard, with Markov flying alongside them.

“My father’s already got him cornered!” Adrien gasped, looking through the window of the door. “I’ll go stop him, but what if… what if I can’t use my powers on him… what if I chicken out again…”

Ignoring everyone else, Marinette went and looked through the window, concentrating hard. There _had_ to be a way to sort this out. There always was.

Right. The room was large, with an open balcony on the far side of it stretching across most of the wall. The balcony hung over the sheer cliffside leading to the “moat” – actually, a river. The door to the room was high up near the ceiling, with a staircase leading down to the floor. A chandelier hung near the top of the staircase. The electricity was not working, other than occasional flickers, so theoretically it would not be too hot to touch, as long as one avoided the frayed open wires that had not been fixed due to the school’s limited budget.

Marinette frowned, her eyes darting across the room frantically. How could she make the setup of this room work to her advantage, and quickly? She doubted Gabriel would be kind enough to wait for her to formulate a plan before stabbing Kim and tossing his corpse in the water.

She had the powers of good luck, Adrien had the powers to cause catastrophe to anything he touched, Adrien was reluctant to cause any direct harm to his father, Gabriel and Kim were both on the balcony…

That was it!

“I have a plan, and you don’t have to cataclysm your father!”

“Cataclysm?”

“Oh – it’s a nickname I came up with for your powers! But anyway, you go in, run to the bottom stair, then use your powers to destroy the floor of the room and the balcony. Gabriel and Kim will fall, but I’ll use my luck powers to save them. Then Gabriel will see that he’s outnumbered and outmatched, and maybe surrender, or something, I haven’t thought out that part yet but we don’t have time.”

“How will you get close enough to use your powers? Are they long range?”

“I’ll jump onto the chandelier. That’ll put me close enough, and also I’ll avoid falling when the floor breaks. Sound good?”

Adrien nodded. “Well we don’t have anything else, or any time, so yes, yes – let’s go!”

 

The rain was still pouring heavily, so heavily that neither Gabriel nor Kim heard when the door opened. Marinette took a running jump off the landing, just about managing to cling onto the chandelier and pull herself up so that she was sitting on it, carefully avoiding the frayed wires just in case the electricity had a momentary spurt again.

Adrien ran down the steps two at a time. As he did so, he pushed into his mind every negative thought he had, every terrible thing his father had done to him or other people, forcing himself to actually go through with it this time. The anger of the world was coursing through his veins. The entire planet was counting on this. He couldn’t let them down! And he couldn’t let Kim die.

Reaching the bottom step, he reminded himself of things that Marinette had secretly told him, though she was not supposed to – about how Gabriel had sent poisoned chocolates to Kim, that Max had suffered that grisly fate in another timeline. He reminded himself that if he failed, more assassinations were waiting for his friends. He reminded himself of the house arrest he had suffered before his powers had surfaced, so suffocating that he had run away all by himself.

And he reminded himself that according to his oracle session in his first year, by the summer he would be _free_. No matter what.

With that thought in his mind, he let out a war cry and thrust his power-infused hand onto the floor.

 

Marinette, up on the chandelier, waited for the exact opportune moment. She only had one shot at this, and she had to make it count.

Adrien had used his powers on the floor, which buckled and crumbled into black dust, spreading across the room like ripples to leave nothing but a bare expanse of sloping rock beneath. Within a few seconds the destruction had reached the balcony too. It melted away to reveal the rocky outdoor ground disappearing into the steep cliffside, leading to the river far below.

_Now!_

Marinette focused hard, holding out her hand and using her power to a bigger extent than she had ever used it before. This was going to drain her, she could just tell – but that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was saving Kim, and the rest of the world along with him.

 

Adrien watched the floor disintegrating in front of him, heard the screech from Marinette as she put her own powers into effect. The balcony itself collapsed, and his heart leapt into his throat when he saw both his father and Kim seemingly fall – then sighed in relief. Both of them had managed to cling onto the edge of the cliffside and were still holding on for dear life. Gabriel had dropped his sword, which clattered down the rocks and disappeared into the water below.

“I can’t – I can’t hold them – hurry!”

Marinette’s voice was strained. Adrien immediately leapt off the stairs onto the rocky ground, running over towards the edge of the cliff at top speed. He heard a thunk behind him, and turned to see that Marinette had fallen off the chandelier in exhaustion.

“Marinette!”

“D-don’t worry about me… go save…”

She raised a finger to point towards the cliff edge, but then dropped it and fell unconscious. Her power really must have taken a huge toll – it had seemed impossible that anyone could fall off the balcony and still manage to hold on without ending up in the river, yet it had happened. Marinette’s lucky charm truly was miraculous.

But there was no time to think about that. Adrien turned back towards the cliffside to see that both Gabriel and Kim were slipping, without Marinette’s powers to stabilize them. Both of them held on with just one hand now. The rain was only making it worse.

Did Adrien have time to save them both before one of them fell? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t even have much energy left. Chances were, he would only be able to save one. The other was doomed.

“Adrien!” his father called out. “Son!”

He had never, _ever_ heard such emotion in his father’s voice before. Or at least, not since before his mother had left. If he saved him now, would things be… different?

He shook himself out of it. Things wouldn’t be different at all. He was _done_ with his father’s manipulation. He could never let it get the better of him again.

Anyway, did Gabriel ever treat him like a son? Surely it was not fatherly to lock up one’s child for having differing opinions, or trying to kill their friends. Gabriel was no father of his. Not truly.

It hurt to admit it, though, it hurt so much that Adrien just wanted to break down into tears and never have to make a difficult decision in his life ever again. With all his anger spent in his powers, all that was left was sadness. That he had to run away to find a family who loved him, that his friends had suffered, that the world could be such a cruel place.

And sadness was _not_ what he needed right now.

He looked at Kim, his heart filling with resolve. If he did abandon his own father to fall off a cliff, he was doing it for the right reasons. To give the world a chance with better leaders, ones who didn’t conquer other countries just to take their land. To save his _friend_.

Yes, Kim had been a wonderful friend to him these past few years. And he deserved a chance to live, a chance to prove himself. Saving Kim was an act of friendship – something that Emperor Gabriel would never understand. And that would be his downfall.

Adrien ran over to the very edge of the cliff. Gabriel looked up at him with hopeful eyes – but he shook his head.

“Sorry, father,” he muttered. Then he leaned down and grabbed Kim’s hand.

The rescue was a blur. It was impossible to properly focus – Gabriel’s expression was haunting him, full of disbelief, betrayal. Never before had he seen his father so emotive. Never would he see it again.

And when Gabriel finally ran out of strength and let go of the cliff edge, Adrien did not watch.

He eventually managed to pull Kim up to the top with a lot of effort, despite the rain making everything slippery, and was immediately swamped in a huge hug. So many emotions were tearing his heart apart, he couldn’t even bring himself to hug Kim back, or even listen to what he was saying. As soon as Kim let go, Adrien’s remaining lifeforce failed him. He collapsed onto the ground and passed out, just as Marinette had done.

 

The others were running into the remnants of the room now, rushing down the stairs. Kim, shaken though he was, picked up Adrien and managed to carry him under the cover of the roof, laying him beside Marinette.

He had almost died – he had almost _died for real_.

And yes, this wasn’t the first near-death experience he’d had. But nothing else had ever come so close.

He was trembling, unable to stop himself. First Gabriel had nearly impaled him with a sword, then he had almost fallen off a cliff, and then he had been certain that Adrien was going to faint before being able to get him to safety…

And Gabriel had fallen into the river. Could he swim? Was he…?

Sitting down on the rocky ground, Kim allowed the tears to roll. Somehow, some way, he was _alive_.

Imperial Prince Adrien had picked him over his own father, and saved his life.

Fu had been right about the power of friendship, then, as stupid as that had sounded at the time. Fu had been right about everything.

Hands shaking too much to keep still, Kim hugged his knees to his chest and closed his eyes. It was over. Finally, it was all over.

“KIM!”

He was glomped by no less than four people, one snake, and one robot simultaneously. All of them were stating their heartfelt relief at knowing he was alright. He could hear Alya and Nino’s voices too – they were here now? He was glad for that, though right now in far too much of a state to be able to express it.

After what felt like forever, he opened his eyes. Alya and Nino were now tending to Marinette and Adrien.

“They’re still alive, don’t worry, they’re just exhausted…”

“Yeah, they must be, I saw that through the window – that was so hardcore…”

“I can’t say the same for Gabriel, though.”

“What do you think will happen to him?”

“If he’s lucky, he’ll drown quickly before the sharp rocks downstream, or he’ll survive and make it onto land… but I wouldn’t count on it, considering the state the river’s in…”

Kim noted that Max and Alix were still hugging him. He put his arms around them and pulled them closer, so grateful to still have them here with him, so relieved that things were alright, and that _finally_ , their problems were at an end. The three of them had been through too much. _Way_ too much.

“I’m so happy you’re alive,” Max mumbled, sounding as if he was about to start crying too. “I love you.”

Kim was not sure he could reply without more tears, so he just pulled his precious sweetheart into a kiss. He had been so close to never being able to do that again. Too close.

Remembering something important, he pulled away and tried to dry his tears – though considering he was drenched from the rain, it didn’t make a difference. “Guys, I found out – well, Gabriel told me – he’s the one splitting the timelines. It’s his fault.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised,” Max said. “It would be him, wouldn’t it? Considering that he’s caused all our other problems too.”

Still so emotionally overwhelmed, Kim managed a small chuckle. “Yeah…”

“At least we won’t have to deal with that problem any longer. The threat has gone.”

“But wait, didn’t Fu say the timelines were gonna split again before summer? What happened with that?”

He turned aside to look at Alix, only to jump in surprise when he saw that she looked far, far more murderous than he had ever seen her before – and that was really saying something, considering her volatile personality.

“They did split,” she muttered.

“Really? When? What happened?”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “When Adrien used his powers. The timelines split, and in the other timeline there was a moth up near the chandelier, and it made Marinette sneeze, and she accidentally hit an exposed wire and got an electric shock, and she fell off and couldn’t use her powers, and y-you…”

She refused to finish, instead just curling up into a ball. She didn’t need to finish, though. Kim could easily figure out the rest.

In this timeline, he had survived and could go home for the summer. In the newly split timeline, he had fallen into the river and lost his life.

“Well… at least we’re in the good timeline,” he said, though he knew that was no consolation. He could hear Alix crying away into her arms, the snake wrapping itself around her tightly in comfort – they had seen Kim’s death with their own eyes. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how it must feel – especially after having to experience all the other timeline deaths too.

But as bittersweet as it was, there was one important silver lining.

Gabriel was _gone_.

Even in the other timeline, if Kim had fallen into the river, Gabriel would have too. It didn’t matter that Kim was not alive, because Gabriel was not either – the rest of the world would be okay. His country would be fine. Adrien would become the new emperor of Agreste, and no one would have to suffer anymore.

And that… that was what really mattered.


	72. Goodbye

It took several weeks for the telecommunication lines to be repaired. In the meantime, plenty happened. Empress Chloé continued to work on sorting out her empire, and very slowly, things began to improve. The weather remained stormy for a while, but soon cleared up. The raging river eventually returned to its normal, peaceful state. Many more students left, and by June the school seemed almost empty.

Adrien, though under a lot of stress from the recent events, sent a letter to the court of the Agreste Empire, letting them know what had happened. The crew of the ship that Gabriel had used to sail here all bowed down and swore allegiance to Adrien, their new emperor, though he was not sure how much he could trust them. Did they think he had murdered his father? There was a chance that a lot of his subjects would think so, and be wary of him. He had to be careful.

After some tearful goodbyes he sailed away with the crew, back to his home for the first time in years. His new empire could not wait for him much longer. What with the school being so devoid of students, there didn’t seem much point staying until the official start of the holidays. It would be best to go back right away and cement his reign before any troubles began.

No news was heard from Gabriel. If he had made it ashore, he was keeping quiet.

The school soon received a letter from the kingdom of Lê Chiến, informing them that the border troubles had cleared up, meaning that it would finally be safe for Kim to return. A zeppelin had also been sent up in the 7th region to provide remote telecommunications access, and within a few days it would be up and running, meaning that phone calls could once again be made to the kingdom. Preparations were immediately begun for Kim’s departure – the remaining porters collated all his luggage from his room and loaded it onto the carriages.

By this point there was no need to stay at school until the very end. No one was here anyway. Chloé, Sabrina and Lila had all left long ago. Adrien was gone now, and Marinette had soon returned to her own home, eager to see her parents again after such a long break. Nathaniel had not even returned to school after the spring holidays. Lady Caline was still here, but she was one of the very few teachers remaining. It was not possible to learn much with the school in a state like this.

The building itself seemed haunted now, too, every creaky chandelier and broken piece of tiling reminding Kim of his near-demise. He really did not want to stay here any longer. This school did have good memories for him too, of course it did. But in a way he had outgrown it. The time was right for him to begin a new chapter of his life – this time as king, ruling over a country.

 

He stood in his now empty room one sunny June morning, his phone in hand. Today would be the day he finally left. It would take him a while to get back home, all the way on the other side of the world, and no aeroplanes yet to take him there. But at least he was finally going _home_. It had been three whole years. Would much have changed?

There had been a certain number he had saved into his phone long ago. Now he dialled it, and held his breath, waiting. According to the timestamp on the letter, the communications zeppelin went up over a week ago. Surely there would be enough time for it to be working now. There had to be.

A voice finally answered.

“Good afternoon, you have reached the kingdom of Lê Chiến. How may we help you?”

It worked! It actually _worked!_ He was speaking to a real person from back home, an actual official! It had been so long that he’d even forgotten about the time difference – of course it was late afternoon back home.

He stopped himself from laughing in relief, reminding himself to sound like a proper ruler now. “Hello, this is Prince Kim calling from my personal telephone. I think I sent the phone number details by messenger pigeon a while ago, so you can verify it if you need to.”

“Ah, Your Highness! We have been hoping to hear from you. Please wait one moment while I verify your details.” There was a pause for several seconds. “Yes, we have your personal telephone number on record. Thank you for your phone call. What do you require from us today?”

What did he require? He wasn’t even sure. He had barely thought about it at all, just wanting to see if the phone lines would even work. There was something else he definitely wanted, though, and he had wanted it for quite a long while. “Um… can I talk to my family? If possible?”

“Of course. Your parents are away at the moment, overseeing the summer solstice festival arrangements, but the Queen-Dowager-Regent is available. She has been eagerly awaiting any news from you. Shall I pass the phone call to her?”

“Yes please.”

“Right, please hold the line for a few moments.”

“Thank you.”

Kim waited for a few minutes, his heart beating rapidly. It had been far, far too long since he had last directly spoken to his grandmother. He missed her so much it was getting impossible to bear. And now, within just a few moments, he would get to hear her voice again! He was so excited he couldn’t stand still, having to pace around the room as he waited.

Finally, that familiar voice spoke. “Kim, I’m so glad to hear from you!”

He hadn’t expected to suddenly be overwhelmed with emotion, and hastily wiped tears away from his eyes. “H-hi bà… how are you?”

“I’m doing very well, thank you, but I really should ask about _you!_ With the communications finally open we’ve been receiving all the world’s news, and it sounds like you have been through quite the adventure. What happened? I want to hear it directly from you.”

“Well… Emperor Gabriel showed up at school and tried to kill me, but then… he fell in the river when the balcony broke…” He was still crying a little, and was aware that his grandma could probably tell.

“Goodness gracious, that really is a terrible thing to have happened to you. I assume you’re out of danger now though?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. We’ve all missed you ever so much. And we’re very proud of you, too. You’ve managed to get our country into the International Alliance without any of us even being there to help you. You’ve grown up so much over the past three years, and I for one can’t wait for you to return so that I can see this change for myself.”

Kim smiled, his heart soaring at the thought of finally getting to go back to his home palace and be with his family once more. “I can’t wait too. And… I’ll try and be a good ruler.”

“I’m sure you will do just fine. We’re planning the coronation to happen around two months from now so that you have plenty of time to get back and adjust yourself. I’ll still be on hand to always help you out. And I’m sure the friends and alliances you’ve made at school will be willing to help you out too.”

“They definitely will.”

“Excellent. With you as leader, and the trade routes back open, I don’t doubt that our kingdom is going to prosper.”

Though still nervous about being a king, Kim was finally beginning to believe that too. Maybe he really could do a good job. He had survived this far, hadn’t he?

“I’m leaving school today,” he said. “My luggage is all packed away and those carriage guards who have been stuck here for like two years can finally take me home.”

“They are still there? My god, I had forgotten about that. As soon as they return they’re getting a hefty pay rise and promotion for their duty. Will you tell them that?”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic. And make sure to give us another call when you’ve almost reached home, so that we can be waiting to greet you. It was so good to speak to you again. We’ll see each other soon.”

“Yeah, see you soon.”

“Goodbye, Kim.”

She hung up. For several seconds Kim just stood there, grinning to himself, unable to stop. He was finally _going home_. It didn’t feel real. Home seemed like a distant memory, like a movie he had watched some time in the past or a dream he’d had, rather than a real place. The thought of finally getting to go back filled him with so much relief it made him dizzy.

He was not sure how long it was before the knock on the door – time seemed to have stopped entirely at this point. Putting his phone back in his pocket, he walked over and opened the door to see Markov hovering there, bobbing up and down a little less than usual.

“Markov! Good to see you!”

Markov wordlessly flew into the room, looking around at the emptiness of it.

“I was gonna come and say goodbye to you actually,” Kim said to him. “I guess you just beat me to it.”

Markov slowly turned around to face him before speaking. “Kim, I… I am feeling an emotion I’ve never felt before. A strange, terrible one. I don’t like it. It _hurts_.”

“You mean you’re feeling actual pain?” Wow, that robot was always surprising him. Every time he thought Markov couldn’t get any more sophisticated, he did.

“No, not physical pain. I do not have nerve receptors. It is an emotional pain.” His eyes were beginning to be overrun with little pixel tears. “Kim, you’re going to leave, for a very long time. And I won’t get to see you. This is a very intense kind of sadness I am feeling right now, because you are my friend, and… I… am going to… miss you… and I’ve never ‘missed’ anyone before!”

His voice was wobbling, and he seemed to be shaking. Was this a robotic form of crying? Without thinking, Kim hugged him tight.

“I’m gonna miss you too, Markov,” he said. “But I’ll try and visit as often as I can. I’ll see you every Peace Ball, at least.”

“That’s only once a year. A maximum of around 21 days out of 365!”

“Well I’ll call you up every single day. That way you can talk to me 365 days out of 365.”

“Thank you, that does make me feel a little bit better…”

“Awesome.” Kim let go of him, letting him fly back into the air. “You’ll take care of Max, right?”

“Yes, of course! In fact, that reminds me, I’m also here to inform you that Max is waiting for you at the school entrance.”

“I guess I’ll go see him, then. There’s no point me hanging around here any longer.”

Markov still had tears rolling down from his eyes. “Kim… when I first met you, I did not realize I would become emotionally attached. I didn’t even expect to form emotions in the first place. But your kindness and friendship helped with that, so thank you. Thank you for helping me experience what it is like to be human, just like you.”

Kim’s own eyes were filling up a little too now. “Hey, uh, it’s no problem. I didn’t realize you were gonna be so cool.”

“Good luck with ruling your country. I think… I think I’m going to go now…” He turned and flew out of the room.

Kim’s cheerful mood from earlier was beginning to slip away slightly. Sure, it was exciting to finally be going home again. But saying goodbye to his friends was not fun, not at all. Thank goodness for the existence of telephones. That would make things so much more tolerable.

Taking one last look around the dorm room that he had spent the better part of the last three years in, he stepped out of the door and closed it for the last time. Maybe he would come back and visit this school again one day. As much as he was getting sick of it, he didn’t want to say goodbye forever.

He headed through the maze of empty, dilapidated corridors, towards the entrance where Max would be waiting. Before he had even exited the dorm areas he caught sight of a familiar face.

“Hi Ivan, what’s up?” he said, going over.

“Hi Kim!” Grand Duke Ivan had been looking out at the courtyard through one of the windows, and now turned to face Kim with a smile on his face. “I heard you’re leaving today. Is that true?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh good, there’ll finally be a bit of peace and quiet around here.”

“Hey!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” He suddenly gave Kim an almighty pat on the back, almost knocking him over completely. “You know, you’re actually alright. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… I’m really glad you’re not dead.”

Kim grinned. “Coming from you, that’s a compliment. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And good luck for the future. I think you might actually do an okay job.”

“Excuse you, I’m gonna do an amazing job, you’ll see. Anyway, have you proposed to Mylène yet?”

Ivan’s pale face suddenly flushed red. “We’re only 18!”

“Pfff, that didn’t stop me proposing to Max one time. You’re just a wimp.” He left out the fact that it had been a complete accident, and he didn’t really mean it, and Max had never replied to that anyway.

Ivan crossed his arms, going back to his usual sullen demeanour. “I take back what I said. You’re gonna do a terrible job and I’m glad you’re leaving.”

“You don’t mean that. You love me really. And also I was kidding, take your time with Mylène.”

“Of course I will.”

“Cool. I gotta go see Max now, but I hope I’ll see you again someday. Good luck and everything.”

Ivan nodded at him, unable to hide a smile. “You too.”

Kim continued down the corridor as Ivan turned back to the window. It was nice that things were cordial between them now. As much fun as it had been in the past to annoy Ivan on purpose, it was even more fun to do it when they were on good terms, when they both knew it wasn’t serious. Perhaps someday they could become proper friends? Kim hoped so. He didn’t want to be a jerk to anyone ever again.

He was distracted from his thoughts when he heard someone around a corner saying his name.

“…and I guess I haven’t been calling you ‘Kim’ at all recently, have I? You’d just get mixed up with human Kim. But I should have been calling you your actual name, Imhotep, and instead I’ve been calling you ‘snake’, so in revenge you can call me ‘human’ if you want…”

He would recognize that voice anywhere – the voice of his best friend in the entire world. He ran around the corner to see that Pharaoh Alix was indeed standing there, talking to her pet snake that was wrapped around the sceptre.

Walking over, he leaned an arm against the wall, saying, “Hey, human. What’s up?”

She hit him with the sceptre. “Only the snake’s allowed to call me that!”

“Well considering that time you called me ‘Emperor Palpatine’ for like a whole week, it’s only fair if I get to call you ‘human’, right?”

“Whatever. You won’t even be here for a week anyway.”

Oh yes, of course. Now was probably the best time to say goodbye to her. He had very much been putting that off.

“I was just heading down to the school entrance,” he said. “The carriage is there with all my stuff in it. And Max is there too.”

“So this is goodbye?”

“Yeah…”

“Okay then. Bye.”

He frowned. “What, is that it?”

“I didn’t want to make it all stupid and dramatic!” She was looking down at the floor, avoiding eye contact. “What did you want me to do? Tell you how cool you are? How awesome a friend you are? Start crying and hug you and admit that I’m g-gonna miss you? Because that’s… that’s n-not happening…”

 _.-.. .. .- .-._ the snake tapped out, sliding off the sceptre and wrapping itself around her headdress.

“Oh fine! I’ll say it! I’m gonna miss you ‘cause you’re my best friend, and l-like… I never had best friends before going to school. And I never cared about anyone this much before. And I know the main threat’s gone, b-but… you have to promise to be careful! I can’t go through losing you again! I _can’t!”_

She dropped the sceptre and put her face in her hands, seemingly trying very, very hard not to cry. Kim had mostly avoided thinking about his near-death as much as he could, and definitely avoided thinking about the fact that in one timeline he really did die, and all his friends were there to see it. Alix had outright forbidden anyone from speaking about it at all, so it was surprising that she was bringing it up now.

He bent down and pulled her into a hug. “I will be careful. I promise.”

It wasn’t the first time he’d promised her that he would be careful. To be fair, the death wasn’t his fault at all. From now on, though, there were no more timeline splits to ruin everything. It was just his own willpower against the world. This time, he was going to survive. He was sure of it.

“By the way,” Alix said, “I’m gonna call you up every single day and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“Good. So I’ll get phone calls from you, Max, and Markov. That’s a lot of phone calls.”

“You’ll need our help, you Kimbecile. You have to do a good job at being king.”

“Don’t worry.” He let go of her and stood back up. “I’m gonna be the coolest ruler ever. Well, almost. You’re the coolest, of course.”

She smiled, wiping tears away from her eyes. “I can’t believe that’s an actual thing you said out loud…”

“Yeah, this is the last time I’ll properly see you for ages, so I have to say all the stuff I wouldn’t otherwise say!”

“Well then, since you did go and make it stupid and dramatic and cheesy, I guess I may as well carry on.” She crossed her arms, her face going red. “I think I learnt a lot from you. Like, I’m not so idiotic and reckless anymore, and I’m better at not scaring people away. That’s definitely at least partly your fault. But you got way better too, which is great ‘cause I sorta hated you when I first met you. You’re cooler now. And I didn’t think I’d end up caring this much, but I do. So yeah.”

Kim rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Yeah, I was a jerk at first, wasn’t I… but you were really annoying too.”

“I’m still annoying, actually.”

“Good point. But I love it now.” He ruffled the little bit of hair sticking out from under her headdress. “I learnt a lot from you too. I mean, we have the wackiest history ever, don’t we? I don’t think I’ll ever have another friend as close as you. You’re special. If platonic sweethearts were a thing, I think I could call you one… if that doesn’t bother you?”

Still smiling through her tears, she shook her head. “It doesn’t.”

“Nice.” He suddenly realized that he was about to start crying too, and quickly changed the subject. “You’ll still go visit Max loads, right? He and Markov can keep you company. I know you don’t wanna lose any friendships and stuff so like…”

“Of course I’ll hang out with Max and Markov all the time. And I’ve got Jalil, too. I’ll make sure I’m not lonely. I’ve actually got the hang of friendship now.” She finally looked him in the eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me, Kim. I’ll be fine. You focus on ruling your country and not dying.”

Ruling his country… not dying… that was it, the tears were already rolling down his face before he could stop them.

“I’ll see you at the Peace Ball,” he managed to say, sniffing, hoping she wouldn’t make fun of him for crying. She was an expert at being hypocritical like that. “Maybe I’ll challenge you to a rematch of… that thing that happened in the lift…”

“Oh yeah, that thing!” Alix laughed. “I’d almost forgotten about that! You haven’t told anyone what happened, right?”

He shook his head.

“Good, neither have I. And I never will.”

 _.-. .- .--. / -... .- - - .-.. .!_ the snake tapped, rather enthusiastically.

“Yeah! Hey, maybe next time the snake can take part too.”

“But I won’t understand what he’s saying…”

“Well then, you’d better learn Morse code before the next Peace Ball. I’ll be waiting.”

Kim just nodded, knowing he wouldn’t have the time or patience to do that. “I… I guess I should go now…”

“Yeah. You should go see Max, and uh, get in a bit more scientific research before you leave.”

Kim had been putting off saying goodbye to Max too, and the thought was twisting at his insides rather nauseatingly. “Yeah, I’ll go do that… You be a good pharaoh, okay? And tell Jalil I said ‘screw you, square’ and… keep swearing on international television and being awesome…”

“Dude, if I say ‘fuck’ one more time in an interview they’ll probably start censoring it. They’ll just have to interview the snake instead.”

Kim gave the snake a stroke. “I’ll miss you as well, little buddy. Uh, Imhotep or whatever your actual name is.”

The snake gave his hand a lick with that adorable little forked tongue.

_\-- . / - --- --- !_

“Lemme guess, is he calling me a punk bitch again?”

“Nah,” Alix said, shaking her head. “He says he’ll miss you too.”

“Aw, he’s so sweet. I can’t believe I used to be scared of him.”

“Yeah, in my experience, human beings can be far, far deadlier than snakes…”

That much was true. It was very, very true.

“Anyway,” she said, “you should probably get out of here now. The sooner you go home and see your family, the better.”

“Yeah…” He finger-gunned at her. “Remember, I love you. No romo.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning. “Whatever. See you later, weird prince guy.” With that, she picked up the sceptre and ran off with the snake.

After a few seconds of getting rid of any remaining tears, Kim continued wandering down the corridor towards the entrance, nostalgia weighing on him. Back when he had first started here, he had never considered that he’d end up best friends with the tiny, terrifying little pharaoh who had somehow managed to enrage him and also capture his heart. Life could be so bizarre sometimes, couldn’t it? There had been rivalry, and reconciliation, and coming outs, and kisses, and fist-fights over Monopoly, and too many stupid challenges to count. He couldn’t have predicted any of that.

And he hadn’t realized he would fall in love with Max, either…

No, when he had first started here, Prince Max was just that good friend of his, the guy he had seen at summer camps and found fun to hang out with. Now they had been together through the worst of times, the thought of looming wars, assassinations, influenza. Max had always been there for him. To the point where he started crushing hard, and didn’t even realize that the love of his life felt the same way in return.

In fact, when he started at this school, he hadn’t even realized there were more “fish in the sea” than just girls! Perhaps that was something he’d keep quiet about back home for a while, though. He wasn’t sure how they’d take it.

All too soon, his feet had carried him to the school entrance. The doors were wide open, allowing the warm sunny air into the large entrance room. Unlike the end of the previous years, it was almost deserted. A few servants and porters were scurrying around, packing the last things into the carriage on the path just outside.

Max was leaning against one of the walls, watching them absent-mindedly. Kim’s heart instantly lifted, the way it always did whenever he saw Max, and he rushed over.

“Max!”

Max turned around just in time for Kim to hug him tightly enough to lift him off the ground. When he put him back down he did not quite let go, only pulling back enough to be able to see his precious sweetheart’s face.

“Hi Kim,” Max said, a sweet little smile on his face. “Did you see Markov?”

“Yeah, he told me you were waiting here. He’s really gonna miss me, poor guy.”

“Well, he’s not the only one who’ll miss you a lot…”

Kim rested his forehead against Max’s. “I’ll call you up every day, I promise. And I’ll build that airport soon so you all can visit.”

“Keep an eye on the budget so that you don’t overspend on the airport. There are probably a lot of other things that your kingdom could use the money for too.”

“Your advice is gonna be so helpful, I just know it.”

Max chuckled. “I’m glad you think so. Hopefully it’ll help you avoid more misadventures.”

“Misadventures? What’s that?”

“An adventure with misfortune or tragedy. Much like the ones that have plagued us over the past few years.”

“Oh, right. Well I’ll definitely be sure to avoid those.”

Max’s voice was starting to waver, and Kim noticed he was clinging on rather tight. “Kim… there’s something I’ve been meaning to say…”

And now the goodbyes were truly going to start. Kim’s eyes were stinging, but he tried to ignore it. He couldn’t start crying _again_ , couldn’t he? He had cried enough for today!

“I’ve already told you a lot how much I care about you,” Max continued. “And you’ve told me, too. It’s not something we ever hold back on. In retrospect, I think I owe that to you. I tend to act very logical and rational, and you’re the opposite, and it really did me a lot of good. We’re… we’re a very good balance.”

Kim smiled. “I was gonna say the same! You’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Max.”

“You’re the best too! So open with your feelings, so free with your heart, so passionate and full of confidence and energy! No wonder I’ve liked you for so long. Well, that, and also you’re rather attractive…”

He was sure he was blushing hard. At least Max seemed to be blushing too, as invisible as it was with skin like his.

“I don’t want to make this too long. I know you want to see your family again as soon as possible, and the journey will be long. But…” Max sniffed. “…you’re like a dream come true. You’re the one encouraging the part of my brain that runs on emotions, rather than logic. And you’ve _always_ been supportive! Ever since I first met you, probably ten years ago now. The fact that you love me back is a bonus, since your support is worth the friendship either way… oh, I don’t even know what I’m saying, I’m just rambling…”

“You’re doing the thing I always do,” Kim said. “That thing where I gush at you about how cool you are?”

“I suppose I am doing that. Though it’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

“Well it’s my turn now.” Kim willed himself to at least hold it together long enough to say something heartfelt – Max deserved that much. “Honestly, you’re so cool I still can’t believe you like me. I used to be a jerk and everything, but you’d still hang out with me, trying to tell me to be better, trying to get me to use my brain for once and stop being an idiot. And thanks to you, I did. I got nicer, I got better at schoolwork, I’m at least a bit less reckless now…”

“Kim, that wasn’t me! That was you, thanks to your own hard work and effort.”

“You helped, though. You’re always really supportive too. I mean, you were helping me out with all my hopeless crushes even though you were into me? I’m still not over that. And you stayed in quarantine with me for months, even though you’d been vaccinated and didn’t need it, and I feel like I can tell you anything and everything, no matter what. You’re like the best mix of a best friend and a sweetheart. When I’m with you I feel more… _stable_ , I guess.”

Max’s smile had been growing wider and wider while Kim had been speaking. “I’m going to miss all these compliments so much.”

“I’ll still compliment you over the phone!”

“It’s not the same though, is it?”

“No, I guess not…”

“There’s another thing I wanted to say,” Max said, sounding far more nervous suddenly. “Do you remember that time when you… um… accidentally proposed to me?”

Kim’s heart leapt right up into his throat. He nodded – how could he forget it? That had been mortifying!

“Well, we’re too young for that, as I’m sure you know. But, that being said… if you feel the same way in about seven years or so, then uh… feel free to ask again…”

“I will,” Kim said, his brain already coming up with all sorts of cheesy romantic proposal scenarios in his head. “Exactly seven years from now, I’ll ask. Mark the date.”

Max grinned. “Perhaps I’ll surprise you by asking first…”

“No way, I’ll beat you to it for sure!”

“Oh really? Like how you beat me to confessing your love for me? Oh wait, that didn’t happen, because I got there first.”

“But I asked you out first!” Kim shook his head, laughing. “It doesn’t matter anyway. As long as it’s in exactly seven years. I’ll have time to let my kingdom get used to the idea. And then I’ll abdicate, or maybe we could do that thing Marinette’s parents did, where their kingdoms became twin-kingdoms and they split their time ruling both… oh, I don’t know. I’ll decide nearer the time.”

“Good, you need a while to relax now. These past years have been very stressful, and ruling a country won’t be easy either. Make sure you don’t burn yourself out.”

“I’ll try.” The prospect of leaving, going home and being coronated, was weighing on him again. “You make sure to look after Markov, and have fun, and go visit Alix lots, all that stuff…”

“Of course.” Max went up onto tiptoes suddenly, leaning in closer. “None of the porters are around, so how about a goodbye kiss?”

Goodbye kiss… why did those words hurt so much? Everything about this moment was so bittersweet. Everything about the past several months had been bittersweet, actually. Perhaps it was a side-effect of growing up. Maybe his whole life was going to be bittersweet from now on.

Well then, he’d better revel in the sweet parts, and learn from the bitter.

“Sure.”

He leaned in and kissed Max deeply, wrapping his arms around him tight, never wanting to let go. If he could stay here forever, he would.

But he couldn’t. He was a prince, soon to be king, and he had a duty. Plus, he would see Max again. This wasn’t goodbye forever.

He was already crying by the time he pulled away, tears spilling out of his eyes faster than he could wipe them away. Now that the moment had actually come to leave, it was hitting him just how much he would miss this place, miss all his friends, miss his sweetheart, everything. This school and everyone in it was a part of his life now. Letting go was not going to be easy.

“You’ll have to go back to pillows from now on,” Max mumbled, taking off his glasses to brush tears away from his eyes too. Kim laughed weakly, wondering if he was blushing again.

“Pillows can’t compare to you.”

“And robots can’t compare to you.”

“I’m still gonna tell Markov about that someday…”

Max smiled briefly, then looked over at the carriage waiting outside the doors. “Your carriage is waiting for you, Kim. And your family is too.”

“You’re right, I should go…”

“Kim, I love you. And just… thank you. For everything.”

“I… I love you too, Max…”

He was crying too much to be able to say anything, so he just pulled Max into one last ribcage-crushing hug, before turning and walking towards the carriage. The guards had opened the door and were waiting for him.

“My grandma says you’re getting a pay rise when y-you get back,” he said. “You deserve it.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” the guard said with a smile, before shutting the door.

 _Your Highness_ … Soon he wouldn’t be called that anymore. Soon it would be Your Majesty. How quickly would he get used to that?

As the carriage set off down the path, Kim looked out of the back window. Max was standing at the entrance, waving. Kim waved back, though he wasn’t sure if Max would be able to see him through this tiny window. He noticed suddenly that up on the roof, Alix and Markov were there waving at the carriage too – how had they got there?! He waved at them too.

Slowly his friends faded out of sight, and the school did too. One chapter of his life was finishing, and the next was about to begin. Would it be as turbulent? As stressful? As _dangerous?_ Hopefully not. At least he was much better at dealing with all that than he used to be, considering how much he had grown up over the past three years. Thinking back to his very first day of school, it was astounding to note the difference.

Now his spirits were lifting again, thinking of his family waiting for him at home. The familiar palace, those friendly servants, the sports rivals, everything and everyone he had been missing so much. Lê Chiến was still very dear to his heart, even after all the other places he had seen. From now on, that was what he had to focus on. Ruling his country and doing a good job, staying out of war, promoting new technologies, making allies. Everything he had been taught at school would surely help him out.

Yes, once he got back home he would not be a prince anymore. He would be King Kim, ruler of Lê Chiến. It was time to take the lessons he had learnt from the past, and put them towards making a bright future for himself, his country, and the entire world.

He looked forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay wow, it's OVER. Finally. What a wild ride, honestly. I cried while writing this chapter. No lie.
> 
> When I first started thinking about a royalty AU fic back in February last year (21st Feb, according to the notes on my phone and my tumblr account, which coincidentally is my best friend's birthday), I didn't intend for it to be some giant, sprawling monster like what it turned into. It was just going to be some cutesy story about Marinette and Adrien getting into royal shenanigans and using their superpowers to save the day.  
> Then at some point all I could think about was all the messes Kim could get into, and I decided to make him the main character, and it kinda just went from there. I'm glad I made it about him, really, because I think I might have run out of inspo otherwise - it's easy to write a fic spanning three years when your main character can just go do stupid stuff like trying to fight a ghost, and it's not out of character! I was a Quiet during high school and I did literally nothing at all, ever, and it was boring, and so now I've unleashed my inner recklessness through Prince Kim. And now he's practically my fave, I can't shut up about him, and I blame 90% of it on this damn fic. (The other 10% is on the Zombizou and Syren episodes. Oh my god he's my son, I love him??)  
> I had various things in place from the start, and I didn't take a lot of it seriously. I knew Marinette and Adrien would defeat Gabriel with their powers at the end and save Kim, I knew Kim would start dating Max about halfway through, I knew Alix and her snake were going to be psychic af. I didn't realize I was going to end up putting in the Angst far sooner than I was originally intending, or that Kim's earlier crushes were going to be so much evil fun to write about, or that I was going to end up shipping Kimax this damn hard (they're so perfect holy moly), or that Alix being friends with Kim and Max isn't actually very canon which makes me cry on a daily basis, and I especially didn't realize this stupid rollercoaster fic was going to end up one of the longest in the fandom! I don't even know what genre it is, it's just... everything??  
> Anyway, to everyone who read this, encouraged me, left kudos, comments, etc - THANK YOU SO MUCH!! You're amazing!! Even if you're just one of the silent ones keeping up (or not managing to keep up, I understand :P), the fact that people actually read this giant mess honestly makes my day and helped me keep writing it even through the tougher patches (*cough* chapters 30-35, I'll strangle you). There are definitely things I'd change if I wrote it again, like actually writing the Monopoly match, and there are probably some loose ends I forgot to tie up, knowing me. A lot of it was made up as I went along or just a few chapters ahead - characters like Kagami, Markov, Wayhem, Ondine, and Luka were later additions of course. And if you want to believe that Clara in chapter 51 is Clara Nightingale then go ahead. (It was meant to be the reporter from the Dark Owl episode though lol.) I'll reread at some point and correct typos/inconsistencies, I know there are some. And I'm open to the idea of writing more stuff set in this universe if people would want to read it, though there's other stuff I should probably finish first. (I have SO MANY IDEAS for a fic about Alya's spy network omg, I've been playing too much Civ6 as France I swear.)  
> But I'll shut up now because I'm just rambling. Thanks again for reading this you guys, it means a lot. I can never look at the word "misadventures" the same way, haha, and oh god there are so many ridiculous out-of-context quotes in this fic I've started keeping a tally of them. It's been one hell of a fic. If you've got any questions, feel free to ask, and I hope you enjoyed this giant misadventure!  
> ~Aish <3


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